DON’T CALL ME AN EXPERT

This is just the way I do things

Compiled by Betsy Jensen

Recent research at the U of MN has indicated that planting blended spring wheat varieties does not have any advantage for yield, protein, leaf disease or lodging. You can plant a quarter of a blended variety, or two eighties of stand alone varieties, and you’ll end up with the same average. It won’t hurt your yield, but it is not going to help either. Perhaps during a year when the crop becomes stressed, the results would be different, but there is no need to pull your seed from two different bins just yet.

It is another story in Kansas, where the variety “Blended” is the fourth most popular wheat variety. It is a common practice in Kansas, and for this “Don’t call me an expert” column I called upon some Kansas experts to explain the how’s and why’s of planting a blended variety.

Loren Johnson farms in Salina County in Central Kansas and raises around 900 to 1000 acres of wheat each year. For the past ten years, he’s been planting three way blended varieties, buying new seed each year. “We blend [new seed] every year because you never know what the dominant variety was the year before” says Johnson. “You have to look at the disease package, maturity and standability to make your blend.” Johnson also changes blends every year, and does grow single varieties, which he often uses to make new blends the following year.

Crop share leases were one reason Johnson switched to blended varieties. “You have coffee shop talk among landlords, and they ask why their field didn’t yield so well. When you are going to different landlords, you have more consistent yields [with blended varieties]. The disease package in one is not quite as good as another and depending on the year, one might outshine another.”

Johnson blends the wheat himself, pulling in bushels from different bins. He does warn that your fields might not look so nice if you get varieties of differing heights. “It still amounts to 10% of what we do and 90% from the good Lord, but we try to do our 10% correct” he concluded.

Elvin Brotten also farms in Central Kansas, and he believes the blended varieties outyield the stand alone varieties. “I mix the three top varieties in our county, and include some disease resistance in case you fall into that category in one year.” Brotten buys certified seed from a certified dealer, and plants all 1700 acres of wheat to blended varieties. “I’ve been doing this for at least six or seven years. I had 16 landlords at one time and when they get together and talk they all want the same yields.”

Brotten says his goal is to try and limit some of the loss. “You don’t know what the weather will be to determine what will be the best” he says. “I’m having better luck and getting better averages mixing three.”

In 2008, AgriPro began marketing three blended wheat varieties to hard red winter wheat farmers; RustBuster South, RustBuster Central, and RustBuster North. “Overtime leaf rust adapts to the regions. Each of the RustBuster blends contains two different leaf resistant genes. If one breaks down, the other one has leaf rust resistance in it” says Greg McCormack, Regional Business Manager for the Central Plains.

McCormack says that farmers have been blending their own varieties for probably fifteen years, but 2008 is the first year AgriPro began marketing a specific blend. “I think one important thing to note is that these are blends of individually grown certified seed varieties. They are a known blend and a known percentage” says McCormack.

Whether or not seeding blended spring wheat varieties becomes common in the Northern Plains remains to be seen, but the practice is quite common in hard red winter wheat country. With spring wheat producers suffering from low protein and large discounts, farmers are looking for some method to stabilize protein levels and yields, and blending varieties may be tempting to try.