Wheat Watch - June 7

June 7

June 1
June 7
June 13
June 19

Things are moving now! Our field is definitely starting to mature. Although, there's still a lot of green there– that's from late tillers. Compare what our field looked like last week. Also, you might want to compare what the wheat looked like last year at this same time. We've had about 4 inches of rain since last Friday. So, things are looking good. I'm a little worried that fields in northern Kansas may have lodging problems associated with all the rain. (Lodging is when the plants fall down and no plants are standing upright. This causes yield reductions and harvest problems.) I've heard reports from southern Kansas that wheat harvest has just started in a few fields today.

Plants in our row still appear to be in good shape, however the lower leaves are turning brown. When do you think we will be able to harvest our field? I think it will be at least two weeks.

I'm still impressed with the number of kernels in a spikelet. As you can see, there are four kernels in some spikelets. With the thin stand we have in our field wheat plants compensate for fewer tillers by producing more kernels per head and heavier kernels. That's what our plants are trying to do.

This kernel is about 28 days old. It is still in the dough stage (Feekes stage 11.2), but the kernel is losing its green color and becoming more tan. If the temperatures get as warm as they are predicted to be, by this time next week the kernels will have lost almost all their green color. I'm amazed our field has been in the dough stage for so long (I'm beginning to think I made a mistake in staging the field back in the milk stage, Feekes 11.1. I think it was in the milk stage longer than I thought.) But with the cool weather we've had the wheat moves through its development much slower and that makes the kernels heavier, which of course, is a good thing.