 |
 |
 |
 | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 | |||
 |
|
body |
 |
| November 9 | |
|
It is time you see the area where I’ve been taking the pictures and
I’m taking most of the pictures between the red flags. Our area is on a Wymore silty clay loam soil (that’s right, soils
have names!). Do you want to see what this soil looks like? We dug a hole so that we could
see the different soil layers. Let’s look a little closer at the wheat plants.
|
|
Here are a couple young wheat plants. Each plant has one or two tillers. In the next picture you can see the tillers. |
|
This plant has two tillers and one main stem. It is growing well, except its root system is not well developed. The reason for this is the lack of rain. It still hasn’t rained. You can see some roots that are coming out from the seed (look at roots in front of my little finger). These roots are called seminal roots, which means they come out from the seed. These roots are used to take up water and nutrients throughout the whole growing season, but there aren’t very many of these roots so that can’t do all the work. Look at the next picture for more roots. |
|
Can you see several small protrusions coming out of the white area about an inch above the seed (look at the area in front of my ring finger)? Those are crown roots starting to grow, but they are having a hard time because it is so dry. These roots take up most of the water and nutrients from the soil, so they are very important for the plant to survive the winter. Let me ask you a question. If a cow was grazing on this wheat do you think she might pull the plant out of the ground as she is eating the leaves? Hint: There aren’t many roots holding the plant in the soil. You’ll need to look at later pictures of the crown roots and see what they look like in a few weeks. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
