Thursday, October 29, 2020
It has been rainy for 10-11 days now, with heavy rain again last night and today. Just today, we have received so far 2.6 inches (66mm) of precipitation! More is expected this evening.
Our Nutrien consultant Greg Anthis and the Dyna-Gro (our wheat seed brand for 2021) rep Landon Taylor came by today to check out the progress of the wheat crop. The wheat variety is Dyna-Gro 9862, and it is soft red winter wheat. Greg and Landon did a diagnosis of the wheat, even digging some out to examine the establishment of the roots. Our wheat acres were planted over a period of days from September 25 to October 1, and today you could see the progression of the growth from the earlier- to later-planted fields.
Greg (L) and Landon
They didn’t let the mud deter them from their inspection
We saw the evidence that the wheat was planted in the dust, and that some of the seed did not sprout until the rain event of the weekend of October 23rd. It appears that the late-starting plants are doing okay. I asked Landon to evaluate establishment of the stand of wheat, and his report was, “It’s not perfect or as we would have liked, but it is still very, very good.” He will continue to monitor our wheat fields periodically, and keep us advised of his opinion of the progress.
Greg has a sample of some nice germination and early growth
The roots are developing well. But you can see that some plants got started growing a little sooner than others.
For me, I think it has made a great improvement since the rains came. The thin patches are now filling in, and the stand looks much more uniform. Moreover, the growing plants look very healthy, with a deep green color. As we see more growth, it should become even more uniform in appearance. It will make the crop canopy look thicker. We will evaluate how the little plants perform at ’tillering’. The more tillers, the better for yield potential next June. There is a lot of detail to the management of producing an abundant wheat crop here in southern Indiana.
This sure looks better than it did a couple weeks ago.
Note the deep green and healthy color.
All in all, this field visit yielded good news today, even if it is quite wet out there!
