With the soil so dry this fall and no precipitation in sight, the decision whether or not to seed winter wheat was a tough one. Many producers who had never before grown the crop chose not to commit any acres to it this year. Some experienced winter wheat growers cut back their acreage. But there were some producers who took a great leap of faith and put some seed into the ground anyway. By the look of the fields I visited, their gamble appears to be paying off.
About the second week of October, I began visiting the fields of many of the growers involved in the Ducks Unlimited winter wheat program. My travels took me to Drake, Lemberg, Wroxton and several points in between. I was pleased that every field I visited was in atleast the 2 leaf stage and some of them had made it into the 3 leaf. The earlier the fields were seeded, the more advanced they were, especially those that received some rain about the middle of September.
To ensure winter wheat establishes successfully, 3 conditions should be met:
All the fields I visited were seeded into stubble with most of them seeded into Roundup Ready canola stubble. Depending upon rainfall throughout the growing season, some of the fields had more residue and taller stubble than some of the others. The snow trapping potential of a field was discussed in the Summer 2001 Issue of the Prairie Steward (page 6). Figure 1 is a graphic version of that index. Most of the fields I visited exceeded the minimum requirements.
Many of the fields I looked at were seeded in that August 20 - September 10 window although some were seeded as late as September 15. The one field seeded the 1st of September was the most advanced.
Seed shallow, seed shallow, seed shallow should be the mantra of every person operating the seeding unit when seeding winter wheat. At a Field Day this summer, Barry Fowler, a winter wheat grower with more than 20 years experience growing the crop, said that if you can't see a few seeds on the soil surface after you're done seeding, then you've seeded too deep. Figures 2 & 3 show the difference in the coleoptiles of seedlings that were seeded at the ½ inch depth versus those seeded greater than 2 inches. (The coleoptile is the sheath that protects the first leaf as it pushes its way through the soil to the surface during germination). The coleoptiles on the deeper seeded seedlings are very thin and spindly. It's taken a great deal of energy to get that leaf out of the ground. In contrast, the coleoptiles of the seedlings seeded shallow are short and thick. As Luba Goy from Royal Canadian Air Farce would say when she's imitating Martha Stewart, "And that's a good thing!"
Figure 1.