News
Wisconsin wheat crop good, but dockages common
The University of Wisconsin’s soybean and small grains specialist says the state’s wheat growers overall, were lucky this year and had a good crop with very little disease trouble.
Shawn Conley tells Brownfield his fields were, “about seven bushels ahead of last year” and right about on the five-year average for yield.
in his test plots and in other fields around the state monitored by plant pathologist Damon Smith, there were few problems. “There were isolated areas where we saw some fusarium head scab, but if you look across the state, and talking to elevators, talking to farmers, we really didn’t see any issues with DON (deoxynivalenol or vomitoxin) , any head scab, really any issues or any diseases at all.”
Conley says there have been a lot of farmers docked for low test weights this year. He says the crops have had a rapid grain fill from flowering to harvest, which can lower test weights. Conley says there were also some problems with keeping the crop dry at the ideal harvest time. “For the most part, if you look across the state, there was more test weight dockage than I’d like to see given how fast farmers were able to get the crop out of the ground this year.”
