News

Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network announced

The Michigan Wheat Program has announced it’s partnering with Michigan State University and Canadian counterparts to form the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network.

Wheat specialist Dennis Pennington says they are modeling the program after the original network created in United Kingdom in 2012.

“If you want to know something about your wheat crop and how it grows this is a program for you because we are going to collect so much data, you’ll have so much information reported back to you,” he explains.

Executive director Jody Pollock Newsome says a wheat workers group in the Great Lakes opened conversations to bring a more regional and global approach to improving production.

“It seems we have so much the same when we look at climate and then as the groups talked, really philosophically we had a lot the same, we were all looking to see what we could do to help growers,” she says.

A pilot is underway this season across Michigan, Ontario, and parts of Ohio which will provide growers more than 90 data points on their winter wheat crop.  Next year the program will be open to growers across the Great Lakes region with plans to expand in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and New York.

Organizers made the initiative announcement during the Michigan Wheat Program’s virtual field day with more details expected in the fall.