Winterkill Woes

Spring Unveils Damaged, Lost Wheat in Great Plains

Emily Unglesbee
By  Emily Unglesbee , DTN Staff Reporter
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Wheat growers in the Great Plains will need to assess the extent of winter injury before proceeding with spring plans, such as herbicide sprays. (DTN photo by Emily Unglesbee)

ST. LOUIS (DTN) -- Not all of Leon Kriesel's wheat fields are waking up to greet the spring weather. He and other farmers across the Great Plains face tough decisions in coming weeks on whether to keep or destroy the crop.

Wheat in the nation's breadbasket is suffering from winterkill, a condition where low winter temperatures kill winter wheat by injuring the crown. "I would have to say, in 50 years of being in west-central and southwest Nebraska, this is the worst I've ever seen," University of Nebraska Extension Cropping Systems Specialist Bob Klein said of the region's wheat injury.

The damage got a start last November when temperatures plummeted from the upper 70s to negative digits in a matter of days. "After that November cold snap, a lot of the wheat turned black or brown and stayed that way all winter," recalled Kriesel, who farms near Gurley, Nebraska. "With the dormancy break, some of that has started to come back and look green, but the totally discolored fields are looking thin, and in some areas, we have big blocks of nothing, where it killed it all."

Kriesel said no field was spared and the winter injury damage ranges from 2% to 100% in individual fields. His plight has been echoed by farmers across the Great Plains, with producers in northwest Kansas and southwest Nebraska reporting the most extensive losses.

Many farmers are still waiting for a crop insurance agent to assess their wheat and give them permission to destroy the crop. In the meantime, spring weeds are starting to emerge and the window for effective herbicide passes is nearing. Spraying herbicides immediately limits farmers' replant decisions, so growers will have to decide quickly whether a crop is salvageable, Klein said.

THE DECISION TO DESTROY

Crop insurance will have the final say in whether a crop can be destroyed and replanted, so growers should contact their local Farm Service Agency representative and crop insurance agent before making any decisions, Klein said. Most agents will wait until early April to assess winter injury, he added.

Growers can venture out to make their own estimates now, however. See this University of Nebraska guide to estimating yield early in the season: http://bit.ly/….

Some plants may try to compensate by putting out additional spring tillers, but don't place too much hope in the new growth, Kansas State agronomy specialist Jeanne Falk Jones cautioned. "The problem with these new tillers is they are not as productive as a fall tiller, and if the plant goes through stressful conditions this spring, those are the first ones that will be dropped," she explained.

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Pennycress, kochia and mustard species are starting to come up in Kriesel's fields and an herbicide application will be due in early April, particularly for damaged, thin fields, he said.

Producers should make sure they want to take their wheat field to harvest before applying any spring herbicides, Jones said. Plantback restrictions on both fall and spring herbicide applications could prevent a producer from switching to many spring crops.

Leaving the soil bare is not a good option, Klein added. If the decision is made to destroy a field, he recommends Nebraska growers consider planting sorghum, millet or forages afterward to prevent wind erosion of the soil.

"Losing this winter wheat crop is not just loss of wheat," he said. "It also throws the whole rotation out of sync. Growing a good winter wheat crop on dryland in western Nebraska is really key to growing good dryland corn or sorghum or other crops the next year." The wheat residue is especially good at locking in soil moisture, improving infiltration rates, and slowing evaporation, all crucial factors for good dryland production, Klein said.

DAMAGE RANGES FROM SPOTTY TO SEVERE

In much of Kansas, winter injury reports have been spotty compared to the widespread winterkill last spring, said Kansas State Extension agent Tom Maxwell, who covers the central Kansas counties of Saline and Ottawa. "For the most part, it tends to show up in more random areas, like terrace tops, so I don't anticipate fields being destroyed and planted to a spring crop," in his region, he told DTN.

Farther north and west, Jones is seeing more widespread and severe damage. "As you look across northern Kansas, we've seen damage as far east as Saline County, and clear across the northern parts of Kansas, many fields are showing some damage," she told DTN.

Late-planted wheat, which didn't have time to establish a good root system before the cold snap, appears to be doing worse for Kansas producers, Maxwell said. Looser seed beds, where the crown was more exposed, also suffered, Jones said.

In southwest Nebraska, early-planted wheat is actually showing more damage, Klein told DTN. The warm, long fall encouraged these wheat fields to use up topsoil moisture and they were more likely to enter the winter with dry soils, which conduct cold much faster, he explained.

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Weather looms large in the minds of many wheat growers assessing the potential of their damaged fields. Kriesel feels that his moisture situation is good enough to get a good spring start and produce average yields this year without destroying any fields.

But producers south and west of him might come to a different conclusion, he added. "This is one of the toughest years we've seen," he said. "It is going to affect acres and bushels produced, especially because the damage is over a big region."

In Kansas, subsoil moisture is mostly adequate, but the top 4 to 5 inches of soil are very dry, with little relief in sight, Maxwell said. Already, spring precipitation has been below average. Much of central and south-central Kansas received less than 25% of their usual March precipitation, according to the National Weather Service in Wichita.

The rest of the season doesn't look too promising for moisture-poor wheat fields, added DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist Bryce Anderson. "It looks like there's just going to be a too-strong upper air flow to allow for much moisture to work out of the Gulf of Mexico into the southwestern Plains (western Kansas) -- so this portion of the region will be on the below-normal trend on precipitation," he said. "Central Kansas will fare better and will be more on the near-normal trend. The impact on wheat will be one of these fair-to-middling crops -- not a disaster but certainly not a top-performing harvest."

For more information on the extent and management of winter injury in Nebraska, see this UNL article: http://bit.ly/…. For more information on the situation in Kansas, see this KSU assessment: http://bit.ly/….

Emily Unglesbee can be reached at emily.unglesbee@dtn.com

Follow Emily Unglesbee on Twitter @Emily_Unglesbee

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Emily Unglesbee