A) How Late Is Too Late To Plant Wheat? - Pierce Paul, Jim Beuerlein, Dennis Mills
Recent estimates coming in from across the state show that soybean harvest, and consequently, wheat planting are lagging way behind estimates for the same period last year. To date, only about 15-20% (state average) of the soybeans has been harvested and about 10-15% of the wheat planted. At about this same time last year, Ohio’s growers had already harvested about 50% of their soybeans and planted about 45% of their wheat. Given the current weather forecast, we anticipate that a lot more beans will be coming off and more wheat planted towards the end of this week and early next week; nonetheless, many growers will still be faced with having to plant wheat later than usual.
There is no easy answer to the question of how late is too late to plant wheat. It all depends of the weather conditions during the Fall and early winter. Ideally, all the wheat should have been planted by the second week of October in order to ensure adequate tiller development before winter dormancy. Due to late bean harvest, growers will more than likely be planting wheat during the last week to October, and because of contractual agreements and current wheat prices, some growers may still be willing to plant wheat as late as the first week of November. Wheat planted this late is certainly at greater risk for poor stand establishment (fewer tillers per foot of row), increased winter kill, and spring heaving. However, in any given year, if warmer-than-usual conditions occur during late fall-early winter (freezing weather delayed until early December), even wheat planted as late as the first week of November may still do fairly well.
To compensate for fewer tiller development in late-planted wheat, growers are recommended to plant at a higher seeding rate than the regularly recommended rate of 1.2 to 1.6 million seeds per acre for 7.5-inch rows (that is about 18 to 24 seeds per foot of row). Plant at a rate of 1.6 to 2.0 million seed per acre instead. The number of seeds per pound is greater than usual this year, so the pounds of seed per acre will also be larger. 2.0 million seeds per acre is 30 seeds per foot of 7.5 inch row. If there are 13,000 seeds per pound, you will need 154 pounds of seed to get 2.0 million per acre or 123 pounds to get 1.6 million seeds per acre. The following table by Jim Beuerlein (http://corn.osu.edu/story.php?setissueID=102&storyID=605) shows the pounds of seed needed per acre to accomplish various seeding rates using different sizes of seed.
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| Seed per
| Millions
| of
| Seed
| per
| Acre
|
| Pound
| 1.2
| 1.4
| 1.6
| 1.8
| 2.0
|
| 10,000
| 120
| 140
| 160
| 180
| 200
|
| 11,000
| 109
| 127
| 145
| 164
| 182
|
| 12,000
| 100
| 116
| 133
| 150
| 167
|
| 13,000
| 92
| 108
| 123
| 138
| 154
|
| 14,000
| 85
| 100
| 114
| 129
| 143
|
| 15,000
| 80
| 93
| 107
| 120
| 133
|
| 16,000
| 75
| 88
| 100
| 113
| 125
|
| 17,000
| 71
| 82
| 94
| 106
| 118
|
| 18,000
| 66
| 77
| 89
| 100
| 111
|
|
|
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