News

MU specialist concerned about Missouri wheat

Missouri’s soybean specialist at the University of Missouri has concerns about this year’s winter wheat crop in the state, especially fields that were planted late, “We had, in many places, delayed planting of the wheat. Tough to get the soybeans out of the field so the wheat plants really didn’t tiller as much. This is in some fields.”

Bill Wiebold tells Brownfield wheat might not have hardened enough for winter conditions so there could be some winter kill. While snow is good for that, ice is not, “If there’s an ice layer on the field, that captures the CO2 that’s respiring from the soil and from the roots and that can actually kill the plants.”

Wiebold says any effect on wheat yields won’t be known until spring. He tells Brownfield he is less concerned, at this point, about delayed planting of corn and soybeans in Missouri because of the wet weather, than he is about wheat. He’d like to see drier than normal weather “as we head into the spring planting season.”