A great big THANK YOU to our County Agents and cooperating growers for getting in and out this year’s County Standardized Trials Wheat Test. With Covid ramped up last fall, we had fewer entries into our trials because of issues with supply and workers in the warehouses. I was happy to see such good yields across the state for a lot of growers. Looking at our plant dates, early planted wheat had an advantage over planting middle to the latter part of November. We had a few scares across the northern counties with the late freeze, and across much of the state during grain fill we were cooler and wetter than desired. Our target varieties seem to be more tolerant to these stressors and in most cases, overcame.
The table below has the results from 8 County Trials, testing 13 varieties. Our average range in yield was from 62 bushel to 131 bushel per acre with an overall average of 94 bu/ac. UT recommendations are to select varieties in the “A” group as our top performers.
-MS (mean separation) Varieties with the same letter are not significantly different
-Orange Blocks show varieties’ yield above the location’s average
-% ≥ Avg. is the % of locations that variety is at or above the field 2021 wheat
Click on table for a full PDF
Finally, after 40 some odd days, our crop appears to be growing. Scattered rainfall earlier this week (June 29th and June 30th) helped but most showers were hit-or-miss. Today (July 1st), however, the rainfall across the area has been widespread. The crop has been waiting on this rain and I expect it will begin growing very rapidly by the end of this weekend. With rapid growth and an increase in number and size of squares, expect plant growth regulator (PGR) and insecticide applications targeting plant bugs to be required in the immediate future. In this blog, I cover a few points on PGR application timing and products, as well as provide some insight from Dr. Scott Stewart on our best options for plant bug control prior to bloom and immediately after bloom.