Spring wheat

I have grown wheat on and off for the last forty years and one thing I can say for sure is that you need to get it in as soon as possible in the spring. This does not say if the spring is delayed not to plant wheat. All date of planting studies have looked at time and not in relationship to when spring starts. That is why on a late year we can still plant spring wheat on May 1 and get a good yield. It has a lot to do with that our wheat has been developed locally for our types of conditions.

Now a few tips as wheat gets planted late we need to increase the seeding rate because the wheat will not have very much time to tiller. Also if the soils are cold, a seed treatment should be considered, so we get the best stand we can and get it out of ground as soon as possible.

One thing to look at if it is a late year to select an early maturity variety to help ensure that you get the wheat mature before the hot days of August. If we are looking at recommended early varieties they would be Advance, Breaker and Traverse.

Any of these varieties will do a good job and mature early. If we get going in the next week or two you may also consider planting Faller Albany, Fore Front or Prospect. These are longer maturing varieties and do the best when we have early spring and it does not get extremely hot in July. The past three years these varieties have looked extremely good but may be different this year if we are having a late spring.