Chilton and Arlington Winter Wheat May 30, 2011

Over the next two days, I will be traveling to all of our wheat plots around the state. For each blog posting, I will also be embedding some short videos that I take at each site showing how the stand looks and also anything that looks a little interesting. Today, we start with Chilton and Arlington.

Chilton:

On my drive up to Chilton this morning, I couldn’t help but notice lots of wheel tracks in the majority of winter wheat fields! At Chilton, the Winter Wheat Performance Tests looks very good. The growth stage is Feekes 8 (flag leaf emerging) to Feekes 9 (flag leaf ligule and collar visible). The wheat head is right around the nodal area for the flag-2 leaf. From a disease perspective, things look really clean. There is a a little bit of BYDV, some Septoria leaf blotch and also powdery mildew. The key observation for Septoria and powdery mildew is that the symptoms are really only around the base of the plants. Right now, a foliar fungicide would not be warranted here at the Chilton performance tests.

Arlington:

At Arlington, the wheat is looking great. Similar to Chilton, the main diseases noted included BYDV, Septoria leaf blotch, and powdery mildew. Outside of BYDV in the upper canopy, the symptoms and/or signs of Septoria and powdery mildew are in the lower canopy near the base. Wheat ranges from Feekes 8-9 (flag leaf emergence) to the boot stage (Feekes 10) to some early heading depending on the wheat variety. In addition to monitoring for foliar diseases, this also means we need to turn our attention to monitoring the risk of Fusarium head blight. While we are probably a few days off from early flowering for some of the varieties, a current check of the Fusarium Head Blight Prediction Center indicates that the risk of FHB is low throughout the state. The one to three day prediction’s are also indicating a low risk of FHB around the state.