By Maddie Newcomb
Small Grain Planting and Management Considerations for Fall 2026
Winter wheat offers several advantages for Ohio crop production systems, including greater crop rotation diversity, valuable soil cover during the fall and winter months, and an additional opportunity for farm income. Now that we’ve entered mid-September, wheat planting is just around the corner. Here are our key management strategies for this fall:
1. Plant within the 14-day period starting after the county fly-safe date. It can be tempting to plant wheat before your county’s Hessian fly-safe date (Figure 1; however, the best time to plant wheat is the 14-day period starting the day after the fly-safe date. In our field research trials, we’ve measured a 5 to 10% yield loss when wheat was planted prior to the fly-safe date (Figure 2).
Farmers sometimes plant prior to the fly-safe date because of concerns about wet weather delaying planting too far beyond the fly-safe date. Historically, when wheat was planted 28 days after the fly-safe date, yield losses averaged 23%. However, with updated field research from 2022-2025, we’ve only measured as much as 10% yield loss. (Sometimes no yield loss when there were good growing conditions in the fall.) Thus, the yield loss associated with planting before the fly-safe date is about the same as the yield loss associated with delaying planting 28 days after the fly-safe date (Figure 2).
2. Select high-yielding varieties with high test weight, good straw strength, and adequate disease resistance. Do not jeopardize your investment by planting anything but the best yielding varieties that also have resistance to the important diseases in your area. Depending on your area of the state, you may need good resistance to powdery mildew, Stagonospora leaf blotch, and/or leaf rust. Avoid varieties with susceptibility to Fusarium head scab. Plant seed that has been properly cleaned to remove shriveled kernels and treated with a fungicide seed treatment to control seed-borne diseases.
Source : osu.edu