Farm Fact Friday: Drilling Wheat

Hello everyone welcome back to another Farm Fact Friday a beautiful October 1st and if you’ve been around the countryside is quite busy with harvest going on as well as maybe you’ve seen people out drilling wheat which is what I’m standing on right now. This is a no-till drill and in my hand is wheat and the drill is attached or hooked up to the tractor and wheat is going into the ground. So I just want to talk a little bit about um wheat and what happens after harvest time.

So the field that we’re in right now this was beans which has been combined um and now we’re sowing wheat drilling wheat and just wanted to talk about how that process works for the actual wheat seed. So this wheat in particular actually requires some cold cold temperatures in order for the reproduction stages to happen later on in the spring and with that reproduction means that the heads of the wheat crop hopefully they’re bountiful so that we have good year exposed to the series of colder temperatures it’s doing what’s called cold acclimation. So this happens when temperatures are 50 degrees or lower um you may also hear it called hardening and that’s just preparing the seed for what it needs to endure over the winter time. So how does it actually adapt to these temperatures and that’s a great question and one we’re going to go into right now the first thing that it does is it needs to decrease that moisture content especially at the crown and you may be wondering well where’s the crown at?

Well once that seed starts to grow and sprout there is a growing point and at the base of that sprout that is where the crown is so it’s going to start decreasing the accumulation of carbohydrates and it’s also going to decrease its actual growth process. All of this will help with um being resistant to frost and that’s really important so that we make sure when it is time for that growth to amp up again that the seed is not dead. So the extended periods of temperatures of 40 degrees or below are very very important in order for that wheat seed to do what it needs to do come springtime. So now I’m not going to talk about specifics related to this wheat seed because those times in very in um the times and temperatures are all related to the variation of that particular wheat seed so important to keep in mind but the general basis is there. So as you’re driving through you’re seeing fields that have been combined um over you know the next few weeks you’ll start to see fields that look like blankets uh they’ll look like blankets of green grass but that’s actually wheat that’s starting to grow and then you know as winter comes along and we start to get snowfall that snow that lays on top of it actually serves as an insulating blanket and it also provides some of the moisture content that the the wheat will need as well.

So just a little bit about what’s going on currently uh in the countryside with harvest and now with some wheat drilling um as we talked about a lot this summer wheat gives us you know the crop itself but then we also have all that the straw that comes with it as well if we choose to to bale it up. So this is kind of bringing us full circle back to the beginning of how we get that crop we talked about earlier so um before I end today just want to thank all of the loyal listeners that come and maybe watch maybe not live but catch up with us week after week we really appreciate it. It’s really a joy to just teach others about agriculture and helps help educate with what it takes to bring food to the table. So with that by golly I hope you have a great rest of your Friday a wonderful weekend and we will check you back next week for another Farm Fact Friday take care.