Our
field is making progress. It’s not as far behind developmentally
as it was.
Compare this year’s field with the field last
year. Unfortunately, our field was thin last fall and it’s
still thin. I don’t think our field ever had a good chance for
tiller development. Any tillers the plants have were formed this
spring. That’s what happens when you plant late in the fall like
we did.
The
plants in the row continue to get taller. It appears they are
about 15 to 17 inches tall. There’s something different about
them, don’t you think?
One
thing that’s different is the stem has at least two nodes now.
This plant is in Feekes stage 7 (two nodes visible). My fingers
are between the first and second node. Do you see them both? The
first or lower node is about two inches below my fingers and the
second node is about an inch above my fingers.
Let’s
look at another plant because we have plants in different stages
of development. This past week our field developed rapidly. We
went through two stages in less than a week. This plant is in
Feekes stage 9. We missed Feekes stage 8, but don’t worry I’ll
tell you about it. That upper leaf is the flag leaf and when you
first see emerge that’s Feekes stage 8, but now that it is fully
emerged it’s in Feekes stage 9. Do you see the first leaf below
the flag leaf and how swollen the stem is? Why, you ask? That’s
where the wheat head is. It will probably be out so that we can
see it by next week.
