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Highest Percent of Yield Potential winner snags 140+ bushel wheat
The leading yielder in the pilot of the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network says 140-bushel wheat was below average for him.
Modeled after efforts to improve wheat yields in the United Kingdom, the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network started last growing season with a few dozen growers including Jeff Krohn.
“It really is learning a lot about how the wheat is growing, weather conditions, nutrients that we’re putting on, trying to find holes in the program, and to grow a better crop,” he explains.
Krohn has been a long-time supporter of on-farm trials to improve yields and while his crop started off strong, he tells Brownfield hot dry weather cut about 15 percent off his yield potential. Krohn plans to participate again this year but says the wheat crop in some spots is having a rough winter.
“Some of it barely got out of the ground and we’re quite concerned about that late wheat,” he says. “Also we have some ice and water on our wheat right now, maybe 10-20 percent in the Thumb area.”
The Network is launching this year with farmers across Michigan, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin.
Brownfield interviewed Krohn during the Michigan Wheat Program’s annual winter grower meeting.
