Time to Top-dress your Winter Wheat

The winter wheat crop looks like it is off to a good start for 2011, and as I write this the markets are looking good too. We have been fortunate that the snow cover has helped with winter survival. While we have had a few nights of colder weather since our snow melted, these dips do not seem to have caused any serious injury other than the normal leaf burn.


While the wheat in southern Wisconsin has started to break dormancy, the snow a couple weeks ago across central Wisconsin has slowed down the wheat progress compared to normal. Once this snow is off and temperatures warm, wheat in that region will begin greening up also. To tell if your wheat has broken dormancy, carefully wash the roots of a few wheat plants and look for new roots from the crown area of the plant. These roots will be snow white and may be very small, ¼ to ½ inch if the plant has just broken dormancy. Another way to tell that your wheat has broken dormancy is to look at the top two leaves of the plant. If you see a line across the leaves at the point where it was covered by the leaf sheath, it has broken dormancy. The area below the line is the new growth and will usually be a brighter or shiny green color compared to the upper portion of the leaf.

Now is the time to get that spring nitrogen on the wheat as the soil conditions permit. Rates should be based on yield goals for your farm and soil type. I usually like to use dry nitrogen to reduce leaf burn on the new emerging leaves. If you are using liquid nitrogen you will want to try to apply it in a band to reduce the amount of leaf surface that can be potentially injured from the application.

As you are checking for green up in the wheat, it’s a good time to look for the growth of any winter annual weeds that might need to be controlled before they get established and compete with the wheat crop. If you have questions on this or other topics, please contact you local Trelay DSM.