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Camrose, Alberta | My winter wheat yields where dissappointing this year, its only my second year learning how to grow it so I am always looking for good advice.
I have been putting on all of the nitrogen in the fall (NH3) when I seed. Last year I put down 85 lbs/ac of actual N plus there was about 20 lbs/ac in the soil, so 105 lbs/ac total. This doesn't appear to be enough, the yield this year was 55-60 bu/ac and 9-10% protien. Last year I used 20 lbs/ac less N and had a 75 bu/ac crop (9-10% protien) on similar quality soil.
The winter wheat has always had a lot of piebald, which is a sign of a lack of N. I had a strip that I forgot to turn the NH3 on and it worked out when I was combining that I hit the spot almost perfectly (33 foot drill and 36 foot header). At harvest the strip was still visable, a little shorter and thinner crop; but the yield only droped about 15 bu/ac from what I could tell by watching the yield monitor. I would hope that 80 lbs of NH3 would give me more than a 15 bu increase in yield.
I am wondering if I am losing too much N over the winter, maybe denitrification? This fall I put on 50 lbs of N and plan to top dress with 28-0-0 in the spring. How much should I apply? I plan to try several rates.
Using the same level of inputs on my spring wheat, this year the spring wheat yielded a good 15 bu/ac higher than the winter wheat right beside it. If winter wheat requires a lot more N than spring wheat I don't know if winter wheat is worth growing at $0.85/lb N. I am hoping its just a matter of timing of application (top dressing).
I enjoy growing winter wheat, its nice to have some seeding done when the snow melts and you get an early start to harvest too. However the economics have to make sense.
Maybe there was something about the growing season that favoured spring wheat over winter wheat, did anyone else see similar trends between the two? | |
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Winter wheat
