Wheat on wheat or not?

Jan 07, 2020

By Dennis Pennington

Generally, planting crops in monoculture is not recommended. There are many benefits to crop rotation including improved nutrient cycling, soil tilth, weed control, disease suppression and increased yield potential. This is true for any crop including wheat. However, sometimes weather patterns create situations where a farmer may want to plant wheat after wheat. Such is the case when weather delays soybean planting and harvesting.

About two-thirds of the wheat planted in Michigan follows soybeans. In 2019, soybean planting was delayed or prevented on many farms across the state. Many farmers who did get soybeans planted, planted late, thereby delaying harvest and missing the optimum wheat planting time in the fall. This is a case where planting wheat on wheat ground that was harvested in July is considered.

Planting wheat after wheat can be successful, but there are some factors that need some consideration before planting the second wheat crop.

Tillage

Many farmers plant wheat no-till, which provides many benefits. However, wheat residue on the surface is a harbor for several wheat diseases including fusarium and Septoria. In a normal crop rotation, there is less risk of these diseases as the residue has degraded. No-till farmers may want to consider some level of tillage to incorporate/bury wheat residue to prior to planting wheat. This will help reduce potential disease inoculum.

Variety selection

Select varieties with disease resistance. Utilize the Michigan State University Wheat Performance Trials as well as ratings from seed companies, agronomists and any other place you can find disease ratings. While fungicides can help protect from diseases, planting resistant varieties in combination with fungicides provides the best control, especially when planting wheat after wheat.

Certified seed

Purchase certified seed from a reputable seed dealer. While hiring a contractor to clean and treat seed on your farm may save you money in the short run, purchasing seed that has been run over a gravity table will provide the best uniformity in germination and emergence. Seedling diseases such as Pythium, rhizoctonia and fusarium can reduce stands significantly. Planting healthy, disease-free seed that has been treated with a fungicide will be more important when planting wheat after wheat.

Fungicides

Earlier in this article, planting disease-resistant varieties was discussed. There are no completely resistant varieties to any of the diseases that affect wheat. Fungicides are necessary to protect yield potential. Fusarium head blight (head scab) is the most economically damaging disease in wheat. Dockage or even rejected loads for high vomitoxin levels are very discouraging to farmers. When planting wheat after wheat, plan to apply at least one fungicide application at Feekes 9 (flag leaf fully emerged) or Feekes 10.5.1 (anthesis).

Pay attention to crop scouting reports and participate in MSU Extension’s Field Crop Virtual Breakfasts to stay up to date on current disease outbreaks in wheat. Details about fungicides and efficacy against diseases can be found on the MSU Extension Wheat Diseases page.

Cover crops

Planting wheat after wheat provides a great opportunity to plant a cover crop ahead of planting as well as after harvest. Cover crops provide many benefits to the cropping system including nutrient cycling, protection from soil erosion and building soil quality. There are many options for cover crops. See MSU Extension’s Getting Started and Managing Cover Crops page.

Weed control

There are several weed species that invade wheat that need to be considered, including common windgrass and roughstalk bluegrass. Scout your fields to ensure you know what weed pressures you have. When planting wheat after wheat, pay particular attention to controlling these weeds. Recommendations for controlling weeds in small grains can be found on the MSU Weeds website.

Straw removal

Wheat straw is becoming more and more important for bedding and a fiber source for dairy farms in Michigan. Wheat straw removes 13 pounds of nitrogen, 3.3 pounds of phosphorus and 23 pounds of potassium per ton of straw. Make sure your fertility program takes this into account when making fertilizer recommendations for succeeding crops. Straw also supplies organic matter back to the soil. If removing straw, apply manure or use cover crops if possible to continue building soil organic matter.

Source : msu.edu

Video: Moving Ag Research Forward Through Collaboration

BY: Ashley Robinson

It may seem that public and private researchers have different goals when it comes to agricultural research. However, their different strategies can work in tandem to drive agricultural research forward. Public research may focus more on high-risk and applied research with federal or outside funding, while private sector researchers focus more on research application.

“For me, the sweet spot for public private sector research is when we identify problems and collaborate and can use that diverse perspective to address the different aspects of the challenge. Public sector researchers can work on basic science high risk solutions as tools and technologies are developed. They then can work with their private sector partners who prototype solutions,” Mitch Tuinstra, professor of plant breeding and genetics in Purdue University’s Department of Agronomy, said during the Jan. 10 episode of Seed Speaks.

Public researchers they have the flexibility to be more curiosity driven in their work and do discovery research. This is complimentary to private research, which focuses on delivering a product, explained Jed Christianson, canola product design lead for Bayer CropScience, explained during the episode.

“As a seed developer, we worry about things like new crop diseases emerging. Having strong public sector research where people can look into how a disease lifecycle cycle works, how widespread is it and what damage it causes really helps inform our product development strategies,” he added.

It’s not always easy though to develop these partnerships. For Christianson, it’s simple to call up a colleague at Bayer and start working on a research project. Working with someone outside of his company requires approvals from more people and potential contracts.

“Partnerships take time, and you always need to be careful when you're establishing those contracts. For discoveries made within the agreement, there need to be clear mechanisms for sharing credits and guidelines for anything brought into the research to be used in ways that both parties are comfortable with,” Christianson said.

Kamil Witek, group leader of 2Blades, a non-profit that works with public and private ag researchers, pointed out there can be limitations and challenges to these partnerships. While private researchers are driven by being able to make profits and stay ahead of competitors, public researchers may be focused on information sharing and making it accessible to all.

“The way we deal with this, we work in this unique dual market model. Where on one hand we work with business collaborators, with companies to deliver value to perform projects for them. And at the same time, we return the rights to our discoveries to the IP to use for the public good in developing countries,” Witek said during the episode.

At the end of the day, the focus for all researchers is to drive agricultural research forward through combining the knowledge, skills and specializations of the whole innovation chain, Witek added.

“If there's a win in it for me, and there's a win in it for my private sector colleagues in my case, because I'm on the public side, it’s very likely to succeed, because there's something in it for all of us and everyone's motivated to move forward,” Tuinstra said.