Mother Nature gave the cold shoulder to millions of prairie acres this spring.
Many crops were killed by the cold and rain while others simply weren’t seeded. The frost threat means late-seeded crops might not see the combine.
But this cloudy spring might yet produce a silver lining.
It is a perfect scenario for planting winter wheat, especially for farmers who have never tried a fall-seeded crop.
Many producers who tried winter wheat in 1999, when conditions were similar, had success and have since made the crop part of their regular rotation.
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A key challenge in seeding winter wheat is finding time to prepare and seed the field while the harvest continues. The combine most directly puts money in the bank, so it takes priority over the seed drill.
But soggy fields that won’t grow a crop this summer can be sprayed and ready for seeding sometime around Labour Day.
This year’s moisture will also help plant establishment and growth. There will be no previous crop to consume moisture, while chemfallow will remove weeds.
Chemfallow and mowing are the best weed control options if a producer wants to seed winter wheat.
Veteran winter wheat grower Lee Moats from Riceton, Sask., warns that cultivation now will ruin an otherwise ideal seedbed.
“Once you put your cultivator in the field, you destroy the trash cover winter wheat needs for survival,” said Moats, a past-president of Winter Cereals Canada.
“You also start to dry out the soil. Winter wheat seldom gets all the fall rain it can use. Those fields may look soggy today and it may be tempting to get in there and help dry them out, but all that moisture can be put to good use by a fall-seeded crop. “
Even in erosion-prone fields, he added, a winter wheat crop seeded early into good moisture may grow tall enough to provide it’s own snow catch, thus reducing or eliminating the erosion risk.
Fall rye is another option for low-trash, high-moisture fields.
Some producers seed perennial forages on high-moisture land to use excess water, but winter wheat can serve that same purpose. Forage is best suited to spots prone to high moisture year after year. Winter wheat is best suited to spots that need temporary relief from high moisture.
Winter wheat can also address salinity.
“Salinity is the big emerging problem in this area,” said Scott Day, a district agricultural representative who farms near Boissevain, Man.
Forages grow for six or eight months and use a lot of that excess moisture. Annual crops extract moisture for only two or three months.
“But you can’t turn to forages on a temporary basis when you’ve got spots where it’s only got just a single year of high moisture to contend with,” he said, adding that fallowing waterlogged land would worsen the salinity problem.
Winter wheat is the ideal choice for this predicament, he said.
Weeds can be controlled with half a litre of glyphosate at a cost of $3.50 per acre. It’s cheaper than cultivation at $4.50 per acre, plus chemfallow helps maintain crop residue.
Too much moisture forced Kirby Fleck of Steelman , Sask., to leave one section unseeded this year. Although recommendations caution against seeding winter wheat too early, Fleck said he’ll go early.
He was pressured into winter wheat in 1999 when moisture prevented seeding anything else on many fields. He has grown it ever since.
“Except for 1999, something we have never seen in this area is a winter wheat crop that is fully developed in the fall,” said Fleck. “There’s never enough soil moisture for the crop to get as far as it should before winter hits.”
Fleck estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the crop in his area will not make it into the bin this year because of cold, wet weather. In the spring, when he realized he would not get the entire farm seeded, he switched plans so the best stubble fields were left for a fall-seeded crop.
“We’re seeding winter wheat on those four quarters in mid-August.”
The extra moisture will guarantee good germination, growth and healthy crowns before winter.
Some fields have good canola stubble cover, but one field is pea stubble with little residue.
“If we can get our winter wheat seeded about mid-August, I think the plants should be tall enough to catch snow without relying on stubble cover.”
Fleck often seeds into dust.
“We got zero rain last fall and zero germination. Nothing. Then when the first snow came, the soil was still warm enough that we got some snow melt and the seeds got damp and swelled up. They germinated under the snow, but they didn’t emerge until this spring. There was no crown development under the snow, just the early stages of germination. This is very unusual … but it shows us how tough those plants are.”
He considered plowing down the crop, but was advised to let it go for a while. The fields now look good.
Before Fleck seeds, he will do three burn-off treatments, at a total cost of about $10 per acre.
Jim Chernick of Rouleau, Sask., has 800 unseeded summerfallow acres this spring because it was too wet. At first he considered a cover crop.
“We were going to put in a half bushel of barley, just to hold it down until next spring, but then I got to thinking that if we’re driving across 800 acres with the cultivator just to air seed some stuff into the ground, maybe we should be putting in a real crop so we have something to show for it.”
Chernick paid $4.25 a bu. for bin-run Clair seed. He said he’ll put it in with 65 or 70 pounds per acre of 11-55-0 and expected to top dress with about 150 lb. of 46-0-0 next spring.
He is getting weed growth now and figures two applications of Rustler at three-quarters of a litre per acre should control weeds while maintaining trash cover. He won’t cultivate the fields, but plans on a single application of a broadleaf herbicide this fall.
“Usually people put winter wheat in a field that has just been combined, and it’s usually so dry you can drive your semi out there without leaving a track. This year should be perfect for winter wheat.”
He plans to seed in mid-August.
“That’s maybe on the early side, but it gives the crop lots of time to use up that moisture. The other thing I like about this plan is it means 800 acres I don’t have to worry about seeding next spring.”
For producers who had fertilizer in the ground before the wet weather, winter wheat might be a good way to use part of that investment before it leaches into the soil or is lost to nitrification, Moats said.
A winter cereal can also prevent stored fertilizer from degrading.
“Everyone I know of has had problems with moisture in their granular fertilizer this year,” he said. “Letting it sit until next spring isn’t going to help that situation any. Some farmers have taken delivery of only 10 percent of the fertilizer they bought. Winter wheat can’t solve all of those fertilizer problems, but the sooner you can get a legitimate crop growing and using your fertilizer, the better off you are.”
The Canadian Wheat Board’s Select Winter Wheat program offers premiums for certain varieties, he added, so growers should check market options before deciding which variety to seed.
