One of the speakers was Rollie Sears—Plant Breeder with Agripro. I have heard him numerous other times at Agripro meetings. He brought up these few items that he made a checklist from to get a plan to follow so I would like to share some of them with you.

1. Should be buying new certified seed every year

2. Treat seed with Dividend and or Dividend/ Cruiser

3. Split fertilizer applications—30% at planting— 70% as top-dress spring

4. Apply 2oz. fungicide when you put your herbicide on in V4 or V5

6. Keep planting the newer varieties not getting

past 5 years when they came out

7. Soil Testing

Now let’s take a look at each one of these a little closer to see how they are important to production:

—New Certified seed can yield you 2 to 3 bushel an acre more

—Treating seed with Dividend will raise your yield 2 bushel an acre

—Treating with Dividend/Cruiser could possibly increase your yield 5 to 6 bushel an acre(Dividend is a systematic fungicide treatment applied before planting to control smut, aphids, and various other items; Cruiser is a systematic insecticide to control things like wireworms from eating on the seed before it comes up)

—Why split fertilizer application? We want just enough to get the plant started in the fall—then we want to get the remainder on when the plant really needs to be in the growing stage

—The 2oz fungicide application (Tilt) is going to be a preventative measure for powdery mildew, tan spot, speckled leaf just to mention a few

—the 14 oz. application (Quilt) if needed, is going to give us the healthy plant we need for grain production; it is going to keep the plant greener longer, enhance stalk quality, optimize photosynthesis and control rust issues.

Some yield responses look like this:

Jagalene untreated——————————53 Bushels

Jagalene 2 oz Rate——————————55 Bushels

Jagalene 14 oz Rate at Flag Leaf—61 Bushels

Why do we want to stay within 5 years on varieties—any further out and you really start losing yield potential plus you are always getting the newer genetics.

Soil Testing is becoming very important because of the price of fertilizer and using the correct chemicals to go with the soil PH and organic matter—not to mention that we can use them for the correct fertilization recommendations to achieve the best yield goal for you.

Rollie also stated that with the genetics of today’s varieties there is a yield potential of 140 bushel per acre. He went on to say that the record yield for wheat was 270 bushel an acre in southern Chile.