Intensive Wheat Management

Michigan, ND wheat producer has found that a broad range of changes and practices can make an $87,000 difference

By Tracy Sayler

In the last ten years, Greg Daws has increased his farm yield from 1.7 bushels better than the county average, to 23.1 bu/acre above the county average, lowering his cost per bushel at the same time. Since May of 1997, he has produced 396,000 bushels of #1 milling wheat and about 3,000 bushels of #2 milling wheat—and Daws’ farm near Michigan, ND, is in the heart of a region that’s been plagued by disease problems since the early 1990s.

How’s he doing it? Management. Intensive Wheat Management (IWM), to be exact, which Daws explains as doing the right things at the right time. “There’s no silver bullet. It takes a broad range of changes and practices to make a difference,” says Daws, who grows spring wheat, winter wheat, malting barley, canola, and dry beans.

Daws employs IWM practices well before hitting the fields each spring, and follows them through into harvest. An overview of his IWM program:

Fertility Management
To keep nutrients in balance as much as possible, and determine fertilizer needs for yield goals, he soil tests every field, every year, including soil pH and micro nutrient deficiencies. Some crops are more sensitive to micro nutrient deficiencies than others, and soil pH as well as organic matter can affect micro nutrient availability, he says. He pays attention to phosphorus levels, which can often be a limiting factor.

He uses split applications of nitrogen on all of his winter wheat, and some of his spring wheat acreage. On winter wheat, he applies half the N rate at planting, the other half when the crop is at Feekes growth stage 6, with the total rate based on soil test recommendations.   For spring wheat, he applies half of the recommended N rate with anhydrous in the fall, and the other half at Feekes 6. Every farm’s soil is different, so experiment to find what fertility program is right for you, Daw advises.

For the second application of N, he has begun using fertilizer nozzles that attach onto the nozzle bodies of a standard sprayer. “This allows me to put up to 40 gallons of liquid N by itself in one application with nearly zero leaf burn. I believe these nozzles will help me become a low cost producer of no-till winter wheat,” says Daws, adding that the nozzles may also aid in efforts to fertilize for protein. The nozzles are carried by United Ag Products of Fargo.

Seeding
Daws uses certified, treated seed, selecting varieties for yield and baking quality, and conducts germination tests before planting. Knowing varietal seed size—how many seeds there are per pound—helps to calibrate the drill for more accurate seeding. He seeds at a rate of 1.6 to 1.8 million plants per acre. “The elevated seeding rate is not to increase yield, but to cut down tillering so that the crop is at a more uniform growing stage for treatments,” he says. Daws has also slowed his seeding speed and is now pulling 60-feet of drill (equipped with electronic seeding depth control) rather than 40 feet. “I’m not seeding any more acres per hour than I was before, but we have dramatically slowed the seeder down to get more uniform seeding emergence for product application.”

Weed Control
Timing and accuracy are the keys here, and tramlines help Daws accomplish both. You’ve probably heard or read about tramlines before, and in fact, Daws is nearly synonymous with them. Learning about their use in Europe, he has been an advocate of tramlines for years, and began marketing tramline kits in the 1990s under the name Air-Tram (www.airtram.com).

Tramlines are made with tramming units mounted on seed tubes of a drill. As you seed in the spring, the tramming units shut off appropriate seed runs, establishing unseeded rows that are the tramlines. The network of tracks later guide precisely measured spraying, unlimited field access, larger windows of application and better weed kill.

For Daws, the key advantage of tram-lines is being able to seed at night. Historic weather conditions in the Grand Forks area indicate that at 3 p.m. during spraying season, conditions for spraying are favorable only 40% of the time. At 1 a.m., spraying conditions are favorable 80% of the time. Night spraying means extra plant dew for product delivery, less crop stress, and the ability to successfully use the lower end of recommended herbicide application rates.

For Daws, the key advantage of tramlines is being able to seed at night. Historic weather conditions in the Grand Forks area indicate that at 3 p.m. during spraying season, conditions for spraying are favorable only 40% of the time. At 1 a.m., spraying conditions are favorable 80% of the time. Night spraying means extra plant dew for product delivery, less crop stress, and the ability to successfully use the lower end of recommended herbicide application rates.

Disease Control
Daws has been using Tilt (2 oz. of product) at the 4-5 leaf stage for early disease protection. He views it as inexpensive protection of the flag leaf, particularly in wet conditions and on minimum or no-till ground. He is going to use Stratego this next growing season, because it appears to do an even better job of leaf disease protection, he says.

He sprays Folicur to suppress scab and to maintain milling quality, with ground spraying again enabled by tramlines. He sprays half the wheat crop (4 fl. oz of product) at Feekes growth stage 10.51, and half the crop in split applications: The first application (2 fl. oz. of product) when about 50% of main stem heads have emerged, and the second application (2 fl. oz. of product) when 50% of main stem heads are flowering.

Night spraying again is preferable for better control, and better use of dew. He uses a spreader-sticker called Tactic and a surfactant called LI700 in conjunction with the fungicides.

Insect Control
Insects are the most overlooked problem in wheat production, since they can be very destructive and hard to detect—the Orange Blossom Wheat Midge, in particular. To control the midge, he tank mixes an insecticide when he applies fungicide at night.

Pre-harvest Weed Control
Daws applies Roundup for preharvest weed control when wheat is around 30% moisture, a practice he highly recommends: It helps fields ripen evenly, counters the stay-green effect from fungicide treatments, and controls a broad spectrum of late-season weeds. “It significantly limits (Canada) thistle grow-back in the fall, and catches wild oat escapes, which after a few years helps reduce the need for wild oat treatments later,” he says.

“When the crop gets down to 16% moisture the first time, we send machines in to take the crop off. If you don’t use Roundup, the crop goes up and down in moisture and starts to deteriorate,” says Daws. “So it helps reduce the threat of sprout damage and preserve the milling quality that the fungicide provided.” The practice increases combine efficiency by 30%, he says, and gets the crop harvested 10 to 14 days sooner.

The cumulative effect shows up in the post-harvest financial results (see management comparison): Daws’ lower production cost per bushel and greater revenue from higher yields combine for a $87.34/acre advantage over “conventional” wheat management, or $87,340 more revenue on 1,000 harvested acres.

“I think it’s the only way, other than totally organic wheat production, that we’re going to be able to compete in the world,” says Daws. “We’ve got to become least-cost producers.”

MANAGEMENT COMPARISON
Conventional Management			Intensive Management
2000 Nelson county ave. bu/A	35		2000 Sunny View Farm   avg. bu/A	58
Cost per bushel	$1.27		Cost per bushel	$1.16
Revenue/acre   35 bu. @ $3.00   LDP 35 bu. @ $.65	$105.0 0 +22.75		Revenue/acre    58 bu. @ $3.46*    LDP 58 bu.@$.65	$200.68 +37.70
Total revenue/acre	127.75		Total revenue/acre	$238.38
Investment per acre	-44.53		Investment per acre	-67.82
Net return/acre	$83.22		Net return/acre	$170.56
DIFFERENCE UNDER INTENSIVE MANAGEMENT
$87.34 per acre or $87,340 more on 1,000 acres harvested
* Represents contracted price plus test weight premiums.

Bayer, Monsanto offering rebates for Producers Who Buy Tramline Kits
Clyde Wilson believes in Daws’ Intensive Wheat Management (IWM) program so strongly that the national fungicide market manager for Bayer Corporation is working with Daws, the North Dakota Grain Growers Association (of which Daws is a board director) and the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers to sponsor seminars to educate producers about IWM practices. The seminars began in March, and will likely resume after the 2001 growing season. “We want to do what we can to help educate wheat producers to be as competitive as they can be in the world market,” says Wilson.

Since tramlines are a key to Intensive Wheat Management, Bayer and Monsanto are sponsoring incentives to encourage their adoption. To offset the $2,400 investment cost of a tramline kit, Bayer is offering a rebate of $600 when a producer buys a tramline kit and uses them to apply 400 acres of Folicur. Additional rebates of $100, up to a maximum of $1,000, apply for each additional 100 acres treated with Folicur, after the 400-acre minimum has been satisfied.

In addition, Monsanto is offering 30 gallons of Roundup worth about $1,000 to producers who invest in tramline kits. Producers who buy the kits will be given a certificate redeemable at participating retailers.

Participating retailers include Agrialliance, Simplot, UAP, and Wilbur Ellis. For more information about tramlines or the rebate program, contact Air Tram Inc., ph. 701-247-2829.