Small grains harvest is underway in Minnesota. Initial reports from southern Minnesota indicate better-than-expected grain yields with good quality. One challenge oat growers face is green stems, even when the grain is more than dry enough to start harvest. Margaret Smith, Albert Lea Seed agronomist, wrote a blog post for their growers explaining why this happens and how to manage it as best as possible. I encourage you to read the post.
Now is also the time to check the incidence and severity of Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) in spring wheat across the Red River Valley. The ideal time to get the best estimate is three weeks after you made the heading application. Given the dry, hot weather the spring wheat crop endured the past two weeks, this optimum time is probably a bit earlier. Check fields that were seeded to varieties rated susceptible or very susceptible (a rating of 6 or worse in the Minnesota variety trials) on old corn ground first, even if you used a premium fungicide to suppress FHB. The Crop Protection Network has an excellent article with great photos to help you refresh your memory of what FHB symptoms look like in wheat, should you need it.
If you find more than 1% of the spikelets infected by FHB in a field, your next step is to check the size of the infected kernels. Completely shriveled-up, pink-colored or white, chalky kernels (the classic tombstone kernels) are light enough that they do not have to end up in the grain tank during harvest. You simply turn up the air on the combine, and while this increases harvest losses, removing them from the harvested grain greatly reduces the concentration of DON in the grain and thus discounts. This approach does not work if the kernels are close to normal-sized, as harvest losses will be too large to stomach. This indicates that the FHB infections occurred during the second half of the grainfill period and not immediately after anthesis. In that case, your only option is to store the grain separately and determine the average DON concentration of the bin. At that point, you have three options to try to get the DON concentration to a level low enough that your local point of sale is willing to take in the grain. Blending is one option. Using a grain vacuum to remove grain dust when unloading the bin has been shown to reduce DON concentrations. The third option is to use a gravity table and continue to remove the smaller, lighter fraction of kernels. This third option has the same limitations as removing FHB-infected kernels during harvest.
Source : umn.edu