In Defense of Wheat
Feb 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Lynn Grooms
At current wheat prices, the cost of biological and chemical wheat seed treatments is the price of just on bushel an acre
With the T-22 biological, contract researchers working with ABM have seen yield increases more than 90% of the time.
Harman is currently testing other biologicals, including other Trichoderma strains. The challenge is to be able to produce a biological in large quantities, but the companies with which Harman works have solved these problems, he says.
Tom Luhrs, who farms 1,600 acres near Imperial, NE, began testing T-22 four years ago, thinking it would be a good companion to Dividend Extreme. He planted side-by-side plots and observed a 10-bu./acre yield advantage over untreated wheat. In replicated trials for the next couple of years, Luhrs says he saw nothing less than a 5-bu./acre yield advantage with the treatment combination.
Luhrs uses a wheat/corn/oats rotation with no-till. He also produces certified seed.
Luhrs plans to test JumpStart, a phosphate fertility management product from Novozymes, formerly Philom Bios. JumpStart contains Penicillium bilaii, a naturally occurring soil fungus discovered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. It is available as a wettable powder that is applied as a seed treatment prior to seeding. It colonizes plant roots and makes the bound mineral forms of less-available soil phosphate available to the crop.
Most of the seed that AgriLand Co-op, a full-service ag retailer in Wisconsin, sells is already treated with commercial seed treatments. “This gives us immediate seed protection,” says Brian Madigan, agronomist, AgriLand Co-op. “A biological adds protection later in the life cycle. It helps extend protection. We had a 9-bu./acre advantage on one check strip of wheat, along with noticeable root enhancement.”
The cooperative has advised customers to use T-22 along with Dividend XL RTA. “This way we can custom apply the product, reducing the rate from 0.7 oz./cwt down to 0.25 oz./cwt,” Madigan says. “It mixes easily in the tank. A farmer could add this to seed in the planter, but even coverage is important.”
Madigan expects that farmers in his area of east-central Wisconsin will plant as much wheat as their rotation will allow. Wheat is a good rotation crop and spreads out a grower's workload. Moreover, a harvest of 80 to 90 bu./acre could earn $500/acre of gross revenue with less than $250 in input costs (before land expenses), Madigan says.
Maloney agrees: “Wheat is an excellent rotation crop, especially if you can market the straw.” He expects the number of wheat acres to either stay flat or increase slightly in 2009. Prices are still good, even though they have fallen substantially since last winter. “Wheat is easy to grow and labor needs are spread out from traditional corn and soybean crops,” Maloney says.
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