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What Do These Wintry Conditions Mean For The
Wheat?
1/30/2007
Ron F.
Meyer
Area Extension Agent (Agronomy)
Colorado State University
Extension
Golden Plains Area |
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First and foremost, this snow is an important source of moisture
that the wheat really needed. When all of this snow melts, the wheat crop
will have the potential to be in exceptionally good shape from this
moisture.
One concern, however, is suffocation of wheat with the great
amounts of snow and ice. There is reason for concern, but I think that we
should be only mildly concerned at this time. First of all, the wheat
went into the winter in pretty good shape, with the rains last fall.
Also, the wheat was mostly dormant when the snow arrived. If the wheat
had been actively growing and was then coated with ice and snow,
evapotranspiration (or the plant’s respiration) would have been abruptly
shut down. This would have caused plant stress, and could have resulted
in problems. Wheat can withstand thick, icy conditions for as much as
three weeks.
Places in the field where the water will stand, such as
terrace channels and low parts of the field, will be the areas impacted.
Plant suffocation will result from field areas holding standing water for long
periods. This will especially be a problem in waterlogged soils.
Waterlogged soils along with ice and snow, will cause the entire wheat plant
(both roots and top growth) to be under stress. As for right now,
suffocation is only a slight concern and in low field areas only. In
reality, it will be some time before we know the full extent of the
ramifications of this snowy weather.
Snow mold is also a disease that
can show up under these types of wintry conditions. First, in order to
have a disease outbreak, there needs to be three criteria: the host, the
environment, and innoculum. We have the host, wheat.
The environment; snow mold likes areas with prolonged snow cover, such as
drifts at the edges of the field and on ground that is not frozen. The
third criterion is the inoculum. The inoculum is soil-borne and not moved
via the wind, like leaf rust. Since we have not had a problem with snow
mold in recent years, there is not a great deal of inoculum in the soil.
However, this is something that can survive in the soil for many years, so it
is likely still present although in small quantities. This disease will
likely be more of a problem in continuous wheat fields because there is more
potential for inoculum.
All of these factors added up show that there is
a potential for snow mold, but it should likely not be a problem. In the
last 20 or so years, there was only one year when this disease was
present. In that year, the affect of this disease was basically
low. Further, in that time we have noted only one field with recorded
yield loss due to snow mold. Therefore, plant pathologists are not overly
concerned with the likelihood of a snow mold outbreak.
Source: Jeanne
Falk
Kansas State University |
Page Created and Maintained by: Perry D. Brewer, Area
Extension Agent (Technology Education/Youth)
1/31/2007 |
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