Wheat Pete’s Word, Aug 4: Oats after wheat, super sunny sunflowers, and white mould mayhem

The agronomic impacts of what has been a wild year for the Ontario growing season are beginning to accumulate, in the form of rock hard soil, fuzzy white plants, and double cobs.

For this early August episode of Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson tackles the big question of making oat hay after wheat, if a fungicide pass might still make sense on edible beans, and soybeans putting an early stop to flowering.

Have a question you’d like Johnson to address or some yield results to send in? Disagree with something he’s said? Leave him a message at 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at [email protected].

Sunflower competition — tall and spreading sunshine!
Sweet corn season and real tomato season has begun
80% of Ontarians have had their first vaccine, 60% are double vaccinated. Need to keep pushing. Let’s have farm shows again!
Planning for January and with so much uncertainty it’s unlikely shows will be in person
Too wet, too dry, and now the soil is cement in Chatham-Kent (editor’s note: this was an unintentional poem)
Meanwhile, first dry 5-day forecast with no rain is set for London and east
Sunday and Monday was hay cutting day just about everywhere (great days to make hay)
Get that wheat out of the field. Pay the drying cost
Now, it’s been in there 3 weeks and farmers are under crunch time, and falling number is dropping
Zero impact of poor falling number on feed quality
Logistically, some of that wheat might have to move as feed to make way for soybeans
Some soybeans have finished flowering and it’s early. Doesn’t bode well for record yields
Record wheat comes into question…plenty of areas with 60, 70, 80 bushels per acre
Woodstock though, 147 bu/ac
Top plot in Ridgetown topped 160 bu/ac
Two T3 fungicide passes, 9 to 20 bu/ac yield increase, better test weight, cleaner straw at one location, but not at the other. More work to come
Remember that the yield monitor is not a weighted buggy. It’s an impact plate (uphill vs downhill)
Holy white mould, batman! Soybeans, is it too late? Yes. Edible beans still flowering? A third pass might be in order
High temps will slow it down, but won’t stop it
Too late to chase it now
Third cut hay — lots of it! Send it west
Dry hay with oats after wheat, can you do it? What about heating?
Not more seed, add more N (unless you’ve got lots of background fertility). Want more oat hay? Pour the N to it
Hay West going Monday Aug 9. Looking for a backhaul. Get in touch!
Western bean cutworm in edible beans? Scout! Look for pod feeding
Fertilizer prices are through the roof. What’s removal rate (big straw yield removes more nutrients), .6 lb/bu P and .36 lb/bu of K, see below!
Yellow corn — do you need to apply more N?