Any potential damage to the US winter wheat crop from last week’s bout of bitterly cold temperatures won’t be known until spring, but there may be reason for concern for at least some for the crop in the No. 1 production state of Kansas.
A report from Kansas State University wheat and forage extension specialist Romulo Lollato looked at several different factors that can influence how the crop holds up to the cold, including snow cover, cold hardening, root development, and overall crop condition.
The report drew no conclusions on just how much of the Kansas winter wheat crop may have been impacted by cold damage, but allowed that the combination of extremely cold air temperatures and lack of snow coverage, particularly in western Kansas, could have left the crop exposed and result in “some winterkill, particularly in terrace tops, late-planted fields, and other more exposed areas.”
The biggest potential for winterkill is in fields that either emerged too early and had a very lush top growth, consequently drying the soil, or those fields that emerged very late and thus had limited tiller and root development, the report said.
A map included in this week’s USDA weather and crop bulletin (below) shows where Plains wheat crops may have been exposed.
On the other hand, the report said the Kansas crop did enter dormancy in generally good condition and noted that soil temperatures during the arctic blast were still not likely not cold enough to cause winterkill to “a well winter-hardened wheat crop.”
“We will not know the extent of winterkill in the state until temperatures start to warm up and the wheat starts to green up later in the spring, so there is nothing growers can do at the moment,” Lollato wrote.
The full report can be seen here:
https://eupdate.agronomy.ksu.edu/article/potential-for-winterkill-to-the-kansas-wheat-crop-624-1
