poor wheat yields on wheat stubble

[poorboy]

Have noticed poor wheat yields on wheat stubble. My AC Barrie yielded about 52 on teal stubble and 67 on canola stubble, both seeded side by side on same day with same seed rate and fertilizer. My CPS wheats are even worse. CPS on CPS stubble is 54, on barley stubble 72 and on canola stubble 95. On the cps I thought that the canola stubble had more carryover fertilizer, so I increased the Nitrogen on some wheat and barley stubble up to 110 lbs N versus my normal 75 lbs. This still did not bring my CPS yields on wheat stubble up. My question is if there is a way to improve CPS yields in particular on cps or barley stubble? Would better nutrition help, or higher seeding rate, or using the new dividend seed treatment, or spraying with Tilt? I have seen the same results in both my min till and no till seeding systems. I live in the dark brown soil zone of Alberta. Thanks for all help

[mhartman]

Your yield depression with wheat on wheat stubble is common, especially during years with good moisture. Most of the yield loss is due to diseases like root rots, and foliar disease. But there could also be other obscure biological factors similar to alfalfa sickness (poor alfalfa growth when reseeded immediately back to alfalfa). In my experience, you can only recover some (perhaps half) of the yield loss from poor rotation with fungicides (seed treatments + foliar treatments). CPS wheats are more vulnerable to take-all root rot, which can be suppressed with the newer seed treatments. Take-all tends to be more severe when soils are wet and cold in early summer. In contrast, TILT will only help control foliar diseases which tend to be more severe when the weather is wet during mid to late summer.

[poorboy]

I had unusually high rainfall amounts from mid May through to mid July. This probably increased the diseases substantially. Now that I am in a zero till seeding system, I am wondering if this kind of yield reduction is going to be a yearly event, or a once in 10 year occurance. I would like to have a rotation of canola, barley, peas or flax, and wheat, but my land is quite hilly and rainfall is normally limiting. I am scared to grow a 1/4 of my farm in peas, and the flax and linola cash returns are poor in my area. Any suggestions on a good, low risk rotation that would allow me to not have to plant wheat on wheat stubble? I live near Drumheller, Alberta and have about 12 inches total moisture per year on average. Thanks for all help.

[poorboy]

I had unusually high rainfall amounts from mid May through to mid July. This probably increased the diseases substantially. Now that I am in a zero till seeding system, I am wondering if this kind of yield reduction is going to be a yearly event, or a once in 10 year occurance. I would like to have a rotation of canola, barley, peas or flax, and wheat, but my land is quite hilly and rainfall is normally limiting. I am scared to grow a 1/4 of my farm in peas, and the flax and linola cash returns are poor in my area. Any suggestions on a good, low risk rotation that would allow me to not have to plant wheat on wheat stubble? I live near Drumheller, Alberta and have about 12 inches total moisture per year on average. Thanks for all help.

[mhartman]

I would suggest the following rotation: canola-wheat-barley. I know that this is only a 3 year rotation but it will suffice. You should make a point of growing blackleg resistant varieties and petal testing for sclerotinia in wetter years of after a year with higher moisture and sclerotinia problems in neighboring fields. Once you gain confidence growing peas (start with only 40 or 80 acres), or flax/linola returns are more satisfactory, then insert them in between the wheat and barley crops. The highest yield benefit from rotation is when you rotate cereal-broadleaf-cereal-broadleaf.

[martensg]

Manitoba Crop Insurance corporation has tracked yields of crops by previous crop for many years. There is a substantial benefit to rotating to another crop. Visit their website at www.mmpp.com to find a graph of expected yields on different crop stubble.

[ejpage]

Talk to Don Adams from Munson about peas in your rotation. Your soil will thank you.