The Fundamentals of Intensive Wheat Management

One key component is stand uniformity. If stand is the weakest link, you are only going to capture as good of a yield as what the stand is capable of giving.

By Phil Needham

Phinee@milesnmore.com

Even though I am from England and based in Kentucky, where the company I work for is positioned, I have had the opportunity over the years to work with a lot of farmers in a lot of countries. I have been able to gain an understanding of the wheat production dynamics of various areas around the world, including Russia, China and Australia and more recently South America.

This photo of Phil Needham and son Benjamin was taken in England in a field of 150-200 bu/ac wheat.

From these observations, it is my belief that producers in the Northern Plains are as well positioned to raise wheat as efficiently from a cost per bushel basis as anyone in the world. If you guys can concentrate more closely on your production, you have innovative producers, you have good soils, and generally you have good moisture, the lack of which can be managed in part with no-till, or the abundance of which can be managed with practices such as tile drainage.

The soils here are similar to the Ukraine and those in the better producing regions in southern Russia.  But you have better producers and better infrastructure. You have got good roads, rails and a river system further south. We operate (the company I work for does) a farming operation in South America. I have been down there and have watched truck drivers grumble when they have to pull a truckload of rice or wheat to the grain elevator.  It is an 18-hour drive. They rarely make it without breaking down, and it becomes a headache.

Working with our Opti-Crop licensees in ND and MN, we have introduced concepts and ideas to growers. Some have been new, some many of you have been doing for years. But, be mindful of the fact that there is always room for improvement.  I don’t know everything about wheat, don’t claim to.  But as a group, we can offer knowledge based upon research – a global fundamental understanding of what works in what areas and what doesn’t.

We consider ourselves a vehicle of technology, a vehicle of change.  If I am in Australia and I see a principal that works for a farmer and move to an area in N.D. that has similar dynamics with soils or environments, I am able to move that technology around. Concentration on detail is important.  The detail component is something that may not cost you any money. You may capture an additional yield component just by doing something a little differently that doesn’t cost you any money. There is a management fee associated with what we do, and in return, we can help growers make (and save) a lot of money.

We don’t offer silver bullets. We won’t say that there is one thing that you can do to increase your yields by x number of bushels. What we can offer is a systematic approach and a platter of technology to help you increase your bottom line. We work with growers one-on-one, providing them recommendations to help them increase levels of profits based on perhaps increased yields, perhaps lower costs, perhaps improved grain quality characteristics. If there are specific diseases out there, specific insects out there, you need a prescription set of recommendations that are tailor made for that particular situation.

This photo was taken south of Fargo last year. The wheat field was no-tilled into soybean residue with a single disc seeder. “Look at the uniformity,” notes Needham.  “Many fields had staggered emergence when they worked their ground ahead of seeding in 2004.”

It is a process of working together as a team to increase yields and profits.  When we began the Opti-Crop system in 1986, when the system was introduced in Kentucky, there was a quick incremental yield response.  Between 1975 and 1986 (prior to the introduction of the Opti-Crop system ), average Kentucky state wheat yields hovered around 35 bu/ac. If you look at where it is today, it is almost double. In fact, USDA statistics quote that the average KY state yields have only dropped twice below 45 bu/ac, since 1986 and more recently state yields have reached 65 bu/ac.

Stand uniformity
We are big on no-tillage, and we like the single disk seeding system. It has worked very well for us, especially in the lower half of the Red River Valley. It provides growers with the ability to be able to accurately position the seed in the soil at a consistent depth, with minimal soil disturbance and draft requirements.  One principal idea we convey, however, is the principal of uniform stands in your fields. You have to watch your fields, understand what is going on with stands, tiller population, head density, insects and diseases, nitrogen rate, all of these factors combined. 

If you visualize a log chain, a combination of links holding up a given yield with every individual link represents single management input, regardless of whether you are putting on herbicide or fungicide, if the stand uniformity is the weakest link, you are only going to capture as good as a yield as what the stand is capable of giving. 

Regardless of what you are doing with fungicides or crop nutritional inputs, if your stand is a limited factor, then you are only going to get as good of a yield as what your stands are capable of making. If you walk through European fields, they are using narrow rows, 4, 4½ , 5-inch rows, and they really concentrate on depth control. They work with seed treatments and specific varieties, and generally have regular uniform fields.

A variable headed-out stand may not sound that bad but for you to time fungicide such as Folicur or Tilt for fusarium suppression, however, you need all the crop to be heading out at the same time, ideally within 24 hours. Otherwise, if you time Folicur or Tilt and the stand is variable, with some heading out a week later, you are absolutely wasting your money timing these fungicides for fusarium. Sound nozzle technology is also essential in obtaining optimal control with foliar applied fungicides, it’s all down to pressure, water volumes, droplet sizes and nozzle orientation.

Uniform stands start with high quality seed. For growers to take full advantage of the technology that is available, you have to work on the seed selection and seed cleaning operation first, then do a better job of seeding the crop at an even depth.

Another area we are concentrating on is micronutrients.  I have seen a lot of research out of the local universities extension systems, generally discounting most of the micronutrients, but in Opti-Crop replicated trials around Fargo in wheat and soybeans, we have seen responses to micronutrients in high yielding environments.

Tramlines give you ability to be able to operate row crop spraying equipment up and down the field with a minimal if any yield reduction. Tramlines are a core component in helping growers increase yields through accuracy.  If you run your wheat down by using, say GPS, you will be losing yields. Tramlines will enable you to capture that yield and run a sprayer through the field.

A post applied N system is a piece of what we do.  Again, post-applied N is not a silver bullet.  It’s just one tool in the system. A flexible tool, if you will, that allows us to custom deliver nutrients, according to yield potential and overall plant health.

Spring 2003 was a good example. A lot of guys that put down all their N at planting or before in the fall, you saw a lot of water, 3-5 inch rains, and a lot of the fields that the farmers put nitrogen down pre, started to yellow at some of the critical stages where you really needed the nitrogen for yield and protein.

Uniform head emergence and tramlines are encouraged in the Opti-Crop system.

We came to ND and MN several years ago with an Opti-Crop system, working one-on-one with  Opti-Crop franchisees based out of Felton, MN (Bigg Dogg Agg) and Driscoll, ND (KAP Custom Services). Their success with Opti-Crop was built on a proven management structure that expanded from Kentucky to Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, then across to Oklahoma, Kansas through Nebraska and up to South Dakota.  Over 500 innovative producers stepped forward and said they wanted to join the system along the way. In evaluating whether you want to sign up in a management system that is out there, ours or whoever, you need to think for a minute and ask yourself, is what you are doing now working?

We have some growers who have taken average yields from around 40, to 70 bushels per acre or more. I am not going to say that we are going to do that everywhere. It depends on your limitations and what kind of job you are doing now. But generally, many wheat growers in the Northern Plains could easily capture another 10-20 bushels per acre in their wheat fields in a lot of situations, without spending any more money, because of the uniformity issue alone.

Farmers in the Red River Valley have attention to detail second to none when it comes to planting corn and sugar beets.  But, it just blows me away that you do such a good job on these crops and such an average job on wheat. By embracing the comprehensive agronomic management practices and techniques advocated in the Opti-Crop program, we’re confident that spring wheat growers can achieve marked improvement with respect to yields, grain quality and profitability.

Needham is manager of Opti-Crop, based in Owensboro, KY. The company offers more information on precision technology, corn management, wheat management, nitrogen stream bars, tramlines, and yield mapping, online at www.opticrop.com .