Managing for Profit

Greater management gets higher wheat yield

Wheat yields respond to a higher level of crop management.  Growers who choose to keep closer tabs on their fields see a payoff at harvest.  Illinois wheat consultant Teresa Buchheit says the effort put into higher yielding wheat is evident from the interest in the Southern Illinois Wheat Tour.

“Typically [the yield estimate] comes very close to the actual average yield in southern Illinois at the end of the year,” said Buchheit during the tour.  “It also give [growers] a little bit of information to look into what’s in their own field, possibly to look for any kind of disease, insects, yield potential.”

Results from the tour indicate that the Illinois winter wheat crop is going to be shorter than in the last couple of years.  The combination of four tour legs determined an estimated average yield of 60 bushels to the acre for this year’s harvest, compared to the USDA’s count of 67 bushels last year.  Southeastern Illinois grower Blake Patton stood in his wheat field and observed that he and other growers pay closer attention to their wheat crop.  “Wheat’s getting to be a little more intensive every year,” said Patton, standing in waste-high green wheat.

John Kaiser, who also grows wheat in southeastern Illinois, employs a specialized wheat consultant who advises him about what specific management to apply to his crop.  “It’s a service that I’ve felt that I’ve got back ten-fold,” said Kaiser.

AUDIO: Teresa Buchheit; Blake Patton; John Kaiser (3 min. MP3)