The wheat maturity stage across Tennessee varies quite a bit. Much of the variance is due to the wide range of planting dates last fall coupled with the cold winter which has really checked up growth particularly of later planted fields. Unfortunately, you really have to squint to see the wheat in some of these later planted fields.  A good bit of the Tennessee wheat crop falls into this category.  However, there were some more timely planted wheat fields last fall and this wheat looks good and is well on its way to getting to the first node.  This maturity stage of wheat is a major cut-off point for many herbicides used in wheat.  Herbicides like metribuzin, dicamba, Powerflex and Osprey should not be applied to wheat past the first node stage. Dicamba is a good example of this as applications after the first wheat node can later cause poor wheat head formation.

Harmony, 2,4-D, MCPA, Finesse and Axial can be applied later than the first wheat node.  Axial, 2,4-D, MCPA and Finesse can be applied to wheat up to the pre-boot stage and Harmony can be applied to wheat up to the flag leaf stage.