August 13, 2020
It’s crunch time on deciding what varieties to plant for the 2021 hard red winter wheat harvest and that makes right now the time to apply herbicide to kill volunteer wheat and other grassy weeds.
Seedsman Vance Ehmke, who farms near Dighton in Lane County, says he expects varieties with good tolerance of wheat streak mosaic virus to be in high demand because weather conditions through this season created a good environment for volunteer wheat — and the wheat curl mites that feed on it between harvest and new crop emergence — to thrive.
“We had a lot of lightweight wheat with high numbers of shriveled and small kernels and a lot of that went right out the back of the combine,” Ehmke says. “A lot of that was caused by dry weather before harvest combined with scorching high temps and strong winds day after day. Then we had some good post-harvest rains so the volunteer is already there. Many fields have very heavy stands.
“Compounding the problem is that this likely is going to be a low net farm income year with some farmers not wanting to spend the money on control. And others who, again, see this as a windfall of free or cheap feed for their cattle. Consequently, we could have some real problems with wheat streak mosaic.”
The good news, he says, is that there are varieties with good tolerance for the virus and supplies of seed should be adequate to meet the demand.
Product manager Josh Coltrain with Syngenta Agri-Pro agrees that wheat streak mosaic virus could be a problem this year.
“Shattering was definitely an issue in some places in the Western Plains,” he says. “Volunteer wheat is likely to be heavy in those regions, allowing for the dreaded green bridge for the curl mite and for the virus itself.”
Coltrain says Syngenta encourages farmers to control the volunteer wheat at least two weeks prior to planting the new crop.
Kansas Wheat was urging producers of the danger of major outbreak of wheat streak mosaic virus this fall as early as the last week of July. The organization said freeze damage during stem elongation caused many delayed wheat heads to emerge. Hailed out wheat also contributes to the problem.
“If volunteer has emerged and is still alive shortly after harvest in hailed-out wheat, wheat curl mites could easily build up rapidly and spread to other volunteer wheat that emerges later in the season,” the organization said in a press release.
There were also some report of head scab disease and waterlogging conditions in parts of central Kansas. All of those conditions can lead to heavy populations of volunteer wheat and raise the threat of wheat streak mosaic virus.
Mark Lubbers, product manager with WestBred, agrees that there is a higher-than-normal risk this fall both because of the weather and because of depressed prices that make it harder for farmers to find the money to spray volunteer wheat.
He says it is also more tempting to use the volunteer in fields for grazing when money is tight.
“It boils down to being a good neighbor,” he says. “You have to remember that your free cattle feed could be your neighbor’s disease disaster.”
Ehmke says he has several neighbors who have been historically negligent in controlling volunteer and that one recourse he has is to plant triticale in the fields that are close to them. If he does plant wheat, he will choose varieties with excellent resistance to the virus, naming Kansas State University’s KS Dallas as well as Whistler and Guardian from Colorado State University.
He says there continues to be big interest in triticale for grazing or haying and silage.
“That acreage keeps growing and often at the expense of wheat acre,” Ehmke says. “For 2020, there were 240,000 acres of triticale planted in Kansas. This fall, I think wheat acreage may be up somewhat because the good rains we had in July and early August have given us a pretty good moisture profile to plant into and get the 2021 crop up and growing.”
In addition to KS Dallas, Whistler and Guardian, he says he expects popular varieties this fall to include Tatanka and Oakley from K-State, Lonerider from Oklahoma State and T158 from LimaGrain.
SY Wolverine from Agri-Pro is getting attention
Josh Coltrain with Syngenta Agri-Pro said its new variety, SY Wolverine is generating a lot of buzz.
“This excitement, I truly believe, is warranted,” Coltrain says. “This new release will offer very high yield potential from the Texas panhandle all the way through to South Dakota. One of its main attributes is its tolerance of Wheat Streak Mosaic virus, which is one of the more difficult diseases to breed for.”
AP18 AX. Also new from Syngenta AgriPro is AP18 AX, a new line in the portfolio with tolerance to Aggressor herbicide.
“Our associates and the producers they sell to are excited about this new technology offering a herbicide option to control some troublesome grassy weeds. AP18 AX stands out with great straw strength, stripe rust tolerance and WSMV tolerance as well,” Coltrain says.
New hard red winter wheat lines offered by WestBred
Two new WestBred wheat varieties are available to plant this fall. Both offer an above-average combination of yield potential and protein.
WB4401. This WestBred variety is a medium-maturing variety adapted for the Central Plains. It offers excellent yield potential, test weight and end-use quality. WB4401 offers a strong disease tolerance package, including intermediate leaf and stripe rust tolerance as well as good fusarium head blight tolerance. It also offers excellent grazing potential and very good Hessian fly tolerance.
Shaun Ohlde, who farms near Palmer, says he was pleased with the performance of WB4401 on his farm.