Cold and dreary Thursday morning, but I decided to look at the wheat in the Soil Health Study Field. Very wet and soggy, with conditions ripe for wheat diseases to be in the crop. This field is just heading out and in just a day or so of sunshine and warmer weather, it would be the optimum time to apply a fungicide (Prosaro or Caramba) to control Fusarium Head Blight (scab). This was a huge problem for wheat producers in Missouri just a few years ago.

Didn’t walk out in to the middle of the field today. Looking at the plants around the edge, there were no signs of any diseases. We did apply two gallons 2017 SRN per acre and one quart per acre of 7.5% copper when this field was sprayed with herbicide. Using the copper in the mix early in the spring, helps keep the wheat plant healthy (in my opinion) and in a year like this the only way that a fungicide application could have been made (at the flag leaf stage), was by air. It would be the same with an application at this time (flowering).

If you are considering an application of Caramba or Prosaro, remember that there is a short window of application. Two to six days after the main tillers of the plant start heading, those heads start blooming. This is the optimum time to apply. You can apply through late flowering, but that is not going to take long with the warmer weather anticipated in the upcoming week.

One other thing. If you can also apply one to two gallons per acre of Max 72 SRN along with a fungicide app at this stage. We have been doing that that for the past several years. Very safe for the wheat and that shot of nitrogen at this stage will help the heads fill out and should help increase the test weight.

If you have questions about your wheat crop, give me a call @573-680-6951 or you can send me an email – jviertel@soilserviceinc.com 

John Viertel