You can learn new about growing wheat every year. Here are four lessons that agronomists say that be gleaned from the 2017 crop:

• Don’t plant winter wheat too soon after controlling volunteer plants. “We saw more wheat streak mosaic virus in wheat in South Dakota this year than I can ever recall,” says Ruth Beck, South Dakota State University Extension agronomist, Pierre, S.D. “Make a special effort to control their volunteer winter wheat (and other host grasses) both in fields that are going back to wheat and in areas adjacent to fields going back to wheat.”

• Don’t over apply nitrogen, particularly on winter wheat. Winter wheat does not need a lot of N in the fall or early spring. Excess nitrogen early (spring or fall) can lead to too much fall growth, excessive tillering and increased disease pressure. “If we have a dry spring like last year, excessive tillering can increase drought stress,” says Beck.

• Treat seed. Last year’s weather and soil conditions in some parts of the region created an ideal breeding ground for Rhizoctonia, a root disease, says Nathan Popiel, agronomist for Syngneta in North Dakota. If Rhizoctonia or other diseases damage fragile root hairs or stunt side-branching, plants are at risk of losing vital moisture and nutrients, which can result in poor root systems that are not apparent until harvest when it’s too late, says Popiel.

• Don’t count wheat out. In some areas, wheat plants were shorter than average due to early season drought stress. Many feared wheat yields were trimmed at least 10% due to the early stress. But the weather was nearly ideal during early grain fill, which allowed for a larger proportion of the grain being produced from new energy generated by the plants rather than being drawn from the stored energy in the stunted stems and leaves. “Nothing we do beats what Mother Nature gives us,” says Jochum Wiersma, University of Minnesota Extension agronomist, Crookston, Minn.