Planting WHEAT for PROFIT!

Wow! It is just plain hard to pencil a profit in any crop these days, even if your land rent is not off the scale. We definitely need to rethink all our old production standards, and see if, and where, we can pinch a few more pennies out of the system.

Thanks to the Ontario Wheat Board, we have been doing some cool production studies over the last several years (your checkoff dollars at work!). One of our trials has been a population study. What has been most interesting is that, despite some thought process to the contrary, there is almost no yield advantage to higher planting populations (Table 1). In fact, over two years of this study, the standard recommended rate of 1.5 million seeds per acre has actually been too high. 1.2 million seeds per acre appears to be quite adequate. This is true across soil types, and regardless of planting date, although early planted wheat certainly shows the least response to increased populations.

The strategy? Wheat plantings will be early this year. Take advantage of this opportunity! Plant all the wheat you can, prior to the optimum planting date in your area (agronomy guide, page 185). Target 1.2 million seeds per acre. With most of the wheat seed running about 13,000 seeds per pound, you will only need 90 pounds per acre of seed to hit 1.2 million. Planted early, this seed will tiller well this fall, and no more seed is required. And you will win on two fronts: wheat seed costs will only be $30.00/ac (vs $35.00 to $40.00 at higher seeding rates), and your wheat will actually yield higher from the early planting date (up to 18 bu/ac yield increase from the 2005 data!).

What could be better? Less cost, and more yield! For the wheat guy….more wheat acres! AWESOME! Everybody wins!

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