Young wheat has some potential to recover from a freeze, agronomists say.
“Even if some of the main tillers are injured or killed, producers should wait to see if enough other tillers have survived to compensate for the lost yield potential,” said Kansas State University agronomist Jim Shroyer.
If areas of a field lodge shortly after the freeze, that may indicate damage to the lower stems, he added.
“Damage may not be immediately evident. If there are darkened or water-soaked lesions near the base of the stems, or if the stems are split, those tillers are damaged and will die. It is also possible that stems may simply have leaned over due to the combination of high winds and wet conditions. In that case, the stems may eventually become upright again,” he said.
Patience is key making an evaluation, he continued. There’s still time left in April to destroy the crop if necessary and plant corn, and even more time to plant grain sorghum, soybeans, or sunflowers, if herbicide carryover restrictions allow and depending on crop insurance considerations.
Unfortunately, recovery is limited when the plant has already been under significant stress.
Oklahoma State University agronomist Jeff Edwards says a wheat plant struggling to survive through a drought typically has few secondary tillers available to replace the primary one.
He worries that in many areas of Western Oklahoma the drought stress was significant enough to prevent the crop’s recovery.
He also warns that plants can look fine on the surface but growers will still need to walk the fields and split open stems to look more closely for damage.
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Young wheat has some potential to recover from a freeze, agronomists say.
“Even if some of the main tillers are injured or killed, producers should wait to see if enough other tillers have survived to compensate for the lost yield potential,” said Kansas State University agronomist Jim Shroyer.
If areas of a field lodge shortly after the freeze, that may indicate damage to the lower stems, he added.
“Damage may not be immediately evident. If there are darkened or water-soaked lesions near the base of the stems, or if the stems are split, those tillers are damaged and will die. It is also possible that stems may simply have leaned over due to the combination of high winds and wet conditions. In that case, the stems may eventually become upright again,” he said.
Patience is key making an evaluation, he continued. There’s still time left in April to destroy the crop if necessary and plant corn, and even more time to plant grain sorghum, soybeans, or sunflowers, if herbicide carryover restrictions allow and depending on crop insurance considerations.
Unfortunately, recovery is limited when the plant has already been under significant stress.
Oklahoma State University agronomist Jeff Edwards says a wheat plant struggling to survive through a drought typically has few secondary tillers available to replace the primary one.
He worries that in many areas of Western Oklahoma the drought stress was significant enough to prevent the crop’s recovery.
He also warns that plants can look fine on the surface but growers will still need to walk the fields and split open stems to look more closely for damage.
