S4E6: Wheat Fertility Checklist

Recorded: 10/22/25

With wheat planting well underway across Pennsylvania, there is no better time to review the basics of wheat fertility and management. In this episode, Ryan and Dwane invite Dr. Edwin Ritchey, Extension Professor of soil and nutrient management at the University of Kentucky, to discuss wheat fertility management. He shares practical advice on N-P-K application timing and rates, discusses sulfur management, micronutrient management, and more.

Hosts: Ryan Spelman and Dwane Miller, Penn State Extension
Guest(s): Edwin Ritchey, University of Kentucky

Links
Wheat Stand Assessment
University of Kentucky nutrient recommendations
Kentucky Wheat Guide
Sensor Technology for Variable-Rate Nitrogen Applications on Wheat in Kentucky

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Transcript

Ryan Spelman (00:18)
Welcome to another episode of the Agronomy Highlights podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Spellman, and I'm joined here with my wonderful co-host, Dwayne Miller.

Now, believe it or not, we are already nearing the end of October. And here in Pennsylvania, that means that most of our soybean acreage is off and our corn is kind of, at least in my area, we're about 50 % harvested at this point. Now, following these harvests, it's pretty common for folks in my area to plant wheat. So we've been planting wheat anywhere from October 1st ⁓ through mid-November. So we figured this would be a great time to talk about some concepts of fertility for managing a wheat crop.

Now wheat is a pretty unique crop in the fact that it's a winter crop. So we're planting this in the fall and allowing it to get some growth on it before the winter comes. And then the vast majority of its growth occurs in the spring. So this creates some questions for folks that are trying to manage a fertility. When do we plan on applying nitrogen, for example?

How much nitrogen do we put on in the fall versus the spring? Our P's and K's, can we apply those in the front end or do we have to wait till the spring? So we're gonna kind of answer some of those questions and go over some of the nuance of managing fertility and some other things in wheat today. So we have on a guest from the University of Kentucky. He's a soil nutrient management extension professor and his name is Dr. Edwin Ritchie.

Dr. Richie is going to come on

and share with us a fall checklist for wheat nutrient management. So we're really looking forward to this and we'll just jump right into it.

So Dr. Richie, thank you for coming on today. Why don't you introduce yourself and share with us a little bit about your role in Kentucky.

Dr. Ritchey (02:07)
Yes, thanks for having me here. Looking forward to the conversation that's going to follow. But I'm Edwin Ritchie. I'm an extension soil specialist located in Princeton, Kentucky. That's three hours west of Lexington. And I'm at a branch station at the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center. And I'm an ⁓ associate extension professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences and the College of ag environment and food sciences.

Dwane Miller (02:36)
Awesome. So you said you're in western Kentucky. How many research stations do you guys have there down in Kentucky?

Dr. Ritchey (02:44)
We have one, we're the only station that really has faculty located here. We have faculty from six different departments in the College of Ag located at Princeton. There's about 60 total staff and employees. And we're roughly a little over 1600 acres on this farm. We have other experiment stations in Kentucky. However, the faculty are

There's no faculty ⁓ station with those. We do have one in the Far East, Robertson Station, who has an extension associate that ⁓ does horticulture research, I believe. And we have some Small ruminants with goat research occurs at the Robertson Station.

Dwane Miller (03:32)
Okay, I find it fascinating to hear about all the different university systems and how they split up their research stations. So here in Pennsylvania for folks, if you don't know, we've got our main hub there in Penn State at University Park. We've got one down the southeast in Lancaster County, but we also have that specialty area like you had maybe talked about. We've got a fruit research center in Adams County and

We've got the wine and grape research center up in the northwestern corner. So again, I think it's always fascinating to hear how these universities have ⁓ themselves split up. Can you talk a little bit about your research program with us?

Dr. Ritchey (04:13)
Yes, I, my research is primarily dedicated to row crop production, primarily work with corn, soybeans and wheat. Recently started working more with forages. We've had a couple research projects involving ⁓ alfalfa fertility, potassium and sulfur. Then worked with other byproducts, or manure waste products of

I hired on, I thought, as an extension soil specialist, and then I realized I was also replacing someone that worked with animal manures and byproducts. So early on in my career, I worked quite a bit with poultry litter and then some other byproducts as they've come along. So NP and K are my primary, were my primary nutrients of interest, a little bit of work with lime and alternate, alternate liming products. And then in the past few years, we've really began to focus on sulfur. I did some work early on and didn't see a large need for sulfur, did surveys, response trials and things like that. And really we couldn't find a responsive soil in all the research projects or surveys that we've done. And then last year, I actually started seeing some responses at our station here in Princeton.

So that's a big part. I have a master's student now that is overseeing a fairly large sulfur project. have three large-scale corn plots off station, and then we have three large-scale soybean plots off station, and then anywhere from four to six on station sulfur projects looking at corn, soybean, wheat, and alfalfa.

Ryan Spelman (06:04)
Awesome. Well, it, this is kind of a perfect, pairing for this episode because what we really want to talk about here are some of those main NPK, relationships between wheat and how we need to manage that in the fall and then looking towards the spring. So maybe in setting the scene for some of these questions, we can talk about what, wheat growing in Kentucky looks like, right? What does a small grain rotation look like and compared to.

Pennsylvania to kind of describe what we usually do here is we'll have corn or soybean followed by wheat. We'll plant wheat, you know, in about November around here, at least where I am in the center of the state, and then harvest it. where I am in the center of the state, double cropping soybeans isn't really viable. We don't really have as long of a season for that, but I know in the southern part of the state, the southeastern part of the state, that's pretty common.

⁓ So that's kind of our rotation is that does that look pretty similar to your rotation and are you usually pairing that with a double crop system?

Dr. Ritchey (07:03)
Very, very similar. All of our wheat, the majority of our wheat is going to follow corn. Every now and again, we might have as much as five, I doubt over 10 % following any crop other than corn. We do still have some tobacco produced. Most of the wheat that follows tobacco is grown as a cover crop, but I have noticed that sometimes farmers are like, this is a pretty good wheat cover crop.

Let me put a little bit of spring nitrogen on it and harvest it. A lot of our wheat is followed by double crop beans. If we grow wheat, it's gonna be double crop beans following it. One of the things that dictates our rotation though, are our soil types. We have a lot of fragile pans in Western Kentucky. So the fragile pan soils,

Typically, they'll be wet in the winter. They run out of water in the fall. A lot of times if we don't get adequate rainfall or well distributed rainfall. So a lot of our fragile pan soils will be a full season corn, full season beans. When you get away from those and some bottom soils, the rest of the soils typically will be wheat, or I'm sorry, corn wheat and then double crop soybeans.

And we're a little bit ahead of you right now. Our recommendations are to plant wheat from October 10th to sometime October 30th. So we're in the full throes of wheat planting right now.

Dwane Miller (08:34)
Yeah, some parts of the state here, you know, we're we've got a very, very climatic conditions here in Pennsylvania and a couple different distinct growing areas and zones. But we are we're right there with you. And like Ryan said, sometimes we'll follow we'll follow soybeans with with a wheat crop as soon as that combine gets through that field.

The next step is that no-till drill going through so we can see some of that going in currently as we get through our harvest process. Let's start to talk about some of this fertility management and look at a snapshot at where we are in the fall and some things we need to be thinking about with fertility as far as small grains go. Let's start with the basic building block.

pH and how important we always stress soil testing. How important is that? And where do we want to set ourselves up for success with when we speak in terms of pH going into the planning season?

Dr. Ritchey (09:41)
Okay, well before you say pH, I wanna go back to something you said previous, soil testing. To me, that is the foundation of our fertility program and unfortunately not everyone will soil test. So if they can soil test early enough in the fall to get their recommendations back, that's by far the best approach. So soon as the corn comes off, hopefully they're taking soil samples so they know how much lime, phosphorus and potassium needs to be added.

So the follow-up, now to get to your original question, to me, pH is the foundation of any good soil fertility program. If your pH isn't right, you're fighting things the rest of the way through the season. So to me, pH is critical. And really, it's one of the cheapest inputs you can include. So why not take care of pH first?

Dwane Miller (10:36)
Yeah, ties into nutrient availability, right? Everything kind of builds off of that. So if we don't have that set up in the first place, we're not going to maximize that value of the fertilizer that we're putting on. And in the current economic situations we're at here, I think we need to be pretty astute as far as maximizing our value of those inputs, right?

Dr. Ritchey (11:02)
Exactly. And not only does it influence nutrient availability, but root growth and then sometimes herbicide activity. So if you don't think about that, got my pH is goofy. Well, it might influence some of the herbicides you're using, especially true in corn with the triazines. but we try to stay on top of that, recommend, know, try to get it on the fall before if need be. But if you're taking care of your soil fertility and your corn and your soybeans or your pH management, you should be good in the corn. Hopefully you're not trying to address a pH of 5.6 and I'm planting wheat tomorrow.

Dwane Miller (11:42)
Right, and I think that's a great point you just bring up. This is a whole part of a system, and if we're astute as far as what we should be doing, soil testing on a regular basis, that is going to be maintained. It's not something we can snap our fingers and say, all right, we're going to try to correct that problem today and plant tomorrow.

Dr. Ritchey (12:08)
Yes, and to me, soil testing is almost one of the cheapest inputs you can include in your system. A lot of our counties actually pay for so many free soil samples. So it's hard to be free.

Ryan Spelman (12:21)
Yeah, that's pretty great. know for us, it's about $10. So it's still like you're saying, I mean, think of sometimes all the input costs that you can save just by getting a proper soil test. And I think to your point that if we're managing our pH for our soybean and corn, we should be okay with our wheat. Like, I mean, oftentimes when I'm thinking wheat, need to be around six. And if you're growing a double crop soybean, right, you should be shooting for like six and a half if you can anyways. So

In that case, it pays to do this earlier in the fall for not only the wheat, but also for that soybean coming up. So my next question would be when we're talking about, let's start with nitrogen management, right? So nitrogen management, have these, wheat's a unique crop, right? Because we're starting this in the fall. We kind of put everything on pause, let it sit through the winter, and then we have the majority of our green up growth and and reproductive growth in the spring, right? So that brings in a lot of challenges when it comes to nitrogen management, right? We have this winter period where we might lose some of that nitrogen coming from that first application. So I wanna hear from you what your perspective on nitrogen is in wheat. When are the right times to apply? What makes sense to apply in the fall? And what makes sense to do in the spring?

Dr. Ritchey (13:40)
Okay, very good question. What we typically recommend is a fall nitrogen application not to be over 30 pounds per acre. And that is with a caveat. That includes if you're putting down your DAP. So make sure you account for the nitrogen in your DAP or MAP. We primarily use DAP in Kentucky, but there is some MAP that goes down on wheat ground. But that 30 pounds, the caveat is

If you don't have an exceptional corn yield, if you think you have some residual nitrogen left over, if you didn't have a real wet year, our recommendation might be zero nitrogen or just what you include with the doubt. And we try to do that to avoid pushing that crop too hard before it goes dormant in the winter. If it's too far along, it's more prone to winter kill. So we try to make sure to avoid that scenario.

But the other interesting fact, and I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute, but about wheat, nitrogen management in wheat, to me, it's one of the few crops that too much nitrogen not only could be an economic waste, but it can be detrimental to wheat growth. If you over-fertilize your corn by 20 pounds of nitrogen per acre, you wasted 20 pounds of nitrogen.

But it's probably not gonna lodge on you or be more prone to cause yield loss. Wheat, on the other hand, if you apply too much nitrogen, you could hurt yourself down the road. So just something that always is kind of intrigued me. That's one of the few crops where too much of a good thing can actually hurt you more than one way.

Dwane Miller (15:22)
So you mentioned looking at no more than 30 pounds of total N per acre here coming into the fall. So if we turn to springtime, how do you assess that crop that following spring and then make your nitrogen recommendations based on that?

Dr. Ritchey (15:45)
Okay, so I guess I'll back up to starting at planting. What we shoot for is to drop 35 to 40 seeds per square foot. And then when we're doing our evaluation early spring, we're trying to make sure we have at least 25 tillers, viable tillers per square foot. If it's over 25 tillers, well, let me back up for a second. We have two scenarios that we commonly use.

We do a single application or split application. I would say the majority of the intensively managed, the majority of the intensively managed wheat are gonna use two applications. Some of them will only do one application of nitrogen, but if we're, I'll talk about the double or the split application first and then move on to the single application. So if we have our 25 ⁓ viable tillers per square foot, or more using a split application, we're looking to apply a lower rate of nitrogen in that first application. And we're looking between Fex 2 and Fex 3. So in Kentucky, that's gonna be somewhere between mid February and early March most years. And we're looking at somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds of nitrogen per acre in that application. Now, if we come through the winter, and at that feeks two to feeks three, if we have less than 25 plants per square foot, what we're going to recommend is to that nitrogen rate a little bit, 40 to 50 pounds of nitrogen in that first application. We're trying to promote growth, make those secondary tillers take off and catch up with the tertiary or the primary tillers. So we're trying to, I guess, kind of get the plant, the crop set up to yield well.

And another reason this split application works well, it's hard to lose nitrogen if you haven't put it out there. So if you don't put it out there, you're not going to lose it. So there's another advantage to that split application. So we come along a few weeks later, looking at mid-March to mid to late March, like feeks five to six or so, then we'll evaluate where our crop stands, and then shoot for a total nitrogen rate of between 80 and 120 pounds. And there's several little caveats that we use there. Generally we'll say 110 will max out, but we'll recommend 10 pounds more in a no-till system, just to account for that residue tying up nitrogen. And then our single application.

We generally won't recommend over a hundred pounds at one for that. And we're shooting somewhere between feets four and feets five. So splitting the difference of the split application more or less.

Ryan Spelman (18:36)
That's great. Yeah, actually. I have, we put an article together, through Penn State that we use your method at university of Kentucky. So I'll make sure I put that article down below and it walks you through exactly some of those calculations you made based on the, the stand assessment and, and how much that needs to be applied on that second application. So I'll make sure to link that. And if you have any other resources, feel free to share it with me and I'll link that below.

Now, before we move away from nitrogen, I do have one question about our fall applications here that we didn't really cover. When we're talking about these applications, does it make a difference if these are in-furrow applications or if, you know, we wait till after emergence and do a broadcast application? ⁓ Is there a recommendation there?

Dr. Ritchey (19:26)
For the nitrogen, I would say 99 plus percent of all of our nitrogen is broadcast. In the fall, it's typically gonna be, if you're applying DAP or MAP, it'll be that. If you need to apply any supplemental, it'll probably be Azurea. And then a lot of our nitrogen in the spring is applied as a UAN, a 28 or a 32 % solution.

Ryan Spelman (19:28)
Yep.

Dr. Ritchey (19:53)
But very little, if any, that I'm aware of comes in furrow. We're typically, well, six to eight inch rows in the drill. Some people will broadcast with fertilizer, but a lot of that is the cover crop wheat. And then they might say, this is really too good to be cover crop. Let's go on and manage it and harvest it later in the year. Yeah, that's great question.

Ryan Spelman (20:17)
Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Sometimes it's, it's those little details, right? That you get out and you think, okay, what do I want to apply? How do I want to apply it? Right. That sometimes we forget to cover here. So maybe this is a good time, unless you have any other notes about nitrogen before we move on in the fall, maybe to talk about P and K, right? So, how does phosphorus and potassium impact

⁓ fall growth and impact its ability to survive the winter, right? Is it really important to get that in them this time of year? Maybe you can just talk about what that kind of fertility does for the crop through the winter.

Dr. Ritchey (20:52)
So if we're thinking about a systems approach, hopefully we're never really too far off from any of our nutrients, as we mentioned earlier, the pH. Hopefully we're not trying to overcome a pH of five five and we're planting a wheat crop because it's already hurt you two or three crops prior. The same thing with P or K. Hopefully we're in the medium range or better. We try not to get into the high range just for economics, but where it comes down to is management.

The management options in my mind come down to what works best for your system. If it works best to put your DAP down because I probably need a little bit of nitrogen in the fall, put your nitrogen or your DAP down in front of your wheat planting. If your P or your K is not too low, it really doesn't matter a whole lot. mean, fall is really a pretty good time to apply fertilizer in line because typically our grounds will support, you know, the heavy spreading equipment. So it's a good time to do that. But if they're put down their potash in front of their soybeans, you should be good. And that's, we have different recommendations here. Sometimes we'll say, apply two years of, you know, two years of nutrients in front of your primary crop, but that being your P and your K. And sometimes it's a little bit more efficient from a nutrient use standpoint to apply it in front of each individual crop, but then the economics come into play. Is it worth making that extra trip with a spreader truck? So that's another kind of heavily caveated question, but if you're staying on top of your fertility program, it should not make that big of a difference is what really works best in your system.

Dwane Miller (22:38)
Okay, so there really is no big benefit as long as our fertility is in line to make sure that we apply it specifically for that small grain crop. It could be applied from a previous crop and have the benefit of being there as well, right?

Dr. Ritchey (22:52)
That's what our research has indicated. Yes.

Dwane Miller (22:56)
Great. Let's shift gears from our macros and let's talk a little bit about micronutrients. Dr. Ritchie, are there some micronutrients that growers should be thinking about in respect to a small grain crop, especially time in the fall or lead us through a little bit of ⁓ knowledge on micros?

Dr. Ritchey (23:17)
For the most part, do not have any micronutrient recommendations for our small grain. Really, the biggest recommendation from a micronutrient standpoint we have is zinc for corn. We have seen some boron and some molybdenum issues in soybeans and corn, but really, we have no recommendations for microbes.

The secondary nutrient however, sulfur, we do. Well, let me rephrase that. We are seeing some issues with it and we're currently trying to develop recommendations to provide farmers guidance on how and when to apply sulfur.

Dwane Miller (23:55)
Yep, you had mentioned earlier you talked about some sulfur response work that you guys have been doing. And I think, again, this all ties together with if you're paying attention to the whole cropping systems and you see something happening in a corner or soybean crop, and it can be addressed from a micronutrient issue, that usually can take care of the problem.

Dr. Ritchey (24:18)
Exactly. mean, most nutrient issues don't just develop, you know, widespread overnight. It will usually start in a small area of a field and like for sulfur, one of the areas that we typically recommend to pay attention to are your eroded areas. There's a lot of sulfur contained in the organic matter. So if we have an eroded side slope, that's a great place to monitor your field for sulfur deficiencies.

We don't really recommend using tissue sampling to provide nutrient recommendations. However, they're a great tool, a diagnostic tool, or just a monitoring tool. Take a tissue sample here and there, or if you see something like daddy wrote it side slope, it doesn't look quite as well as other. It could be just simply water because it's not able to contain or hold as much water as some of the other areas, but it could be something more. And that's where we try to, that's where we expect. And that's generally where we see our sulfur issues coming in. Like I say, it typically will not just all of a sudden show up and you lost 30 acres of wheat because it took over the whole field. Usually it will express itself somewhere prior to becoming more of an issue. So.

it always is good to pay attention to your crop. Your crops going to tell you a lot about what's going on.

Ryan Spelman (25:46)
So I guess a follow up to that, specifically when we talk about sulfur deficiency is like, like you're saying, you might, you're not going to notice it. Maybe you have like patches where you might have a problem and you'll notice that early spring. Does that become a situation where we take note of that and then we manage it going forward, you know, for that next crop and, and hope that we remedy it in time for the next crop of wheat as well, or is that something that we can tackle in season in the spring?

Dr. Ritchey (26:14)
Definitely can pack lead in season in the spring. I started here in 2010. In 2011, I started my first research project was a tissue survey of wheat. And we saw no plants or no fields out of like 40 fields that showed a low sufficiency range for wheat. The following year, we found one and it was a weird field. was...

done some dirt work and they buried brush piles and burned them and it was a small area and thought, well, that was probably the answer. Well, looking back at that, knowing what I know now, it might've been more than that. It might've been one of those eroded side slopes that was actually showing it. we, the research I'm doing now, I'm currently putting the sulfur down in the wheat at first spring application and it seems to be working well. I actually got a 27 bushel yield increase this year. Whereas the previous 10 wheat research trials I've done, I got no yield response. So we're starting to see it. If you're able to, if you know coming out of say your corn, hey, I've got a sulfur issue, you can address it in the fall for sure. Hopefully if you know you have a sulfur issue in the corn before that, you can address that.

In the spring before you plant your corn. It's an essential nutrient. If you don't need it, you don't need it. But if you do, it could cost considerable yield. Right now, there's not enough widespread sulfur deficiencies in Kentucky that we actually have university guidance. That's what we're trying to develop with this current research. What's the best way? When do I apply it?

All land grants are going to say, oh, you should apply 20 pounds whether you need it or not. That's not a bad approach if you're thinking from a farmer's standpoint because, hey, what's this going to cost me? That's $20. That's a cheap input cost for an insurance. But if you're growing 1,000 acres of wheat and you don't need it on that, that's $20,000 that you spent that you didn't need. And these current economic environments at $20,000 might be a lot of money.

So yeah, address it when you can. Sulfur, it responds well to a spring application. But if you know you have it going into that, you know, planting season for the wheat or whatever crop, it'd be best to address it on the front end if you can.

Dwane Miller (28:42)
OK, you might have talked a little bit about fertilizer. We did mention fertilizer placement here earlier, mostly broadcast as far as in wheat rotation. if we've got any recommendations, if we have a no-till situation, if we've got some high residue, anything from a nutrient management standpoint that we should be thinking about with our fertility.

Dr. Ritchey (29:08)
Nutrient management with a heavy residue cover. A lot of people feel that they need to do some sort of tillage to deal with that residue. You can, that's one option. A lot of our fields are not tabletop flat. We have a lot of relief. So when you start running some sort of a minimal tillage tool, you size that residue.

And you loosen the soil and then with these more intensive rains that we're getting and you're on a seven percent slope you can move a lot of soil from the top of that slope to the bottom and hopefully it doesn't go past that into the water and then go down to you know one of your neighbors in Louisiana. So the the residue management is something that you know we deal with here we highly recommend

No to wheat if that works for your system. And yeah, you can lose a little bit of your nitrogen. It can be tied up and you can, we'll catch some years where it's actually warm enough that we promote urea volatilization. But for the most part, volatilization potential is fairly low when we're applying our nitrogen. You know, in the fall, we're getting down into the the 40s at night. We're still 60s or low 70s right now, but volatilization potential is low. If you can put it down in front of a rainfall, that'll wash it into the soil. Once it's in the soil, your volatilization has lost. That potential has lost that.

Once it washes into the once the nitrogen washes into the soil, you've reduced that volatile volatilization potential greatly. We shouldn't lose any. One other factor I'm thinking about and I'm sorry, I'm bouncing back to the fall application. One of the other reasons we don't recommend a lot of nitrogen in the fall, if that plant doesn't utilize it, we typically are warm enough at times that we still have denitrification that occurs.

So a lot of that fall nitrogen that we apply, if we have some warm, warm days before winter, before it breaks dormancy, we can just simply lose that nitrogen due to denitrification. And that's probably besides urea volatilization, that's probably our biggest in-loss mechanism over the winter. So it all comes back to a total system. You know, why do I do this now? Because you've got, you know, a hundred factors working against you.

And one of them might be time to get behind the seat of a tractor.

Dwane Miller (31:45)
Yep, right, we got the the 4R is the right place, the right time, the right, right, uh, oh boy. Ryan, uh-

Ryan Spelman (31:54)
Two R's.

What the other two are right dose and the right form. Yep, there you go.

Dwane Miller (32:00)
Form. 

Form, rate, place, and time. There you go. sorry.

So the last thing that is on our list that we wanted to just talk about briefly was the use of plant growth regulators or PGRs. Dr. Ritchie, any knowledge and insight that you want to share with PGRs?

Dr. Ritchey (32:20)
I do, and I will list this as a caveat, I guess. All the research work I've done with PGRs have been in small plot settings. And I've talked to several wheat consultants that tell me from a PGR standpoint for wheat lodging, a small plot, a 10 foot wide plot with a break between it, 30 foot long is going to be different in the field setting. So all the work that I've done, I've gone up to 210 pounds of total nitrogen. That would be 150 in the spring with a split application and 60 in the fall. I have yet to be able to lay wheat down. I have not created any lodging. However, every year I'll drive by fields and you'll see where the sprayer will overlap or the spreader will overlap in corners and you will see wheat that's lodged. So yes I do think PGRs have the place and from my experience I've yet to create any in my field plots but you know it's easy when you're using a hundred foot boom to overlap by you know a few feet and in a field, even if you're using guidance, when you start turning, you're putting down different rates in that corner. I think they have their place, but for the most part, if we're watching our nitrogen management, they're probably not needed as often as we use them. They are a very important tool in the toolbox, but as far as me giving a blanket application, just plan on using your PGR, I do not do that.

I mean, I come from more of an ITM approach. You use it when you think you need it and at the appropriate times.

Ryan Spelman (34:10)
Yeah, that's a great message. think PGRs are maybe in that category of like, if you have this lodging problem that you see commonly in a certain field, right? You might have like a windy field. Maybe it's the soil type, right? It just has some really good organic matter that pushes the nitrogen to that crop. There's probably fields that people know that they have lodging problems and that might be the ones that you consider. And if you don't, you don't need it, right?

Dr. Ritchey (34:38)
Yes, and I hope I didn't indicate that you can make your decision when you start seeing lodging and you know you have to have that decision made well in advance of that. But yes, that's a great point. The field history and you can tell what if it's poison green, you know going into the seasons like ooh this might be a good candidate for a PGR. If it's you know about the right color.

That's something, hey, maybe I can save a few dollars an acre this year. It's all a total system as we've been discussing all day.

Ryan Spelman (35:12)
Sure, so what I guess if you do have a field that you know going in the winter it's like it's really green lush you're like ⁓ this one might be a problem. What's the right timing to use a PGR right? Is it during green up you know is it should I wait till later?

Dr. Ritchey (35:27)
I will have to check the label. I think it's prior to Feeks five or six.

Ryan Spelman (35:35)
Sounds good. And maybe we'll put down a another article about PGR specifically. I know we have some and if you have any send them our way and for our audience speaks five to six, that's through beginning parts of stem elongation. So you're done tillering and you're moving into that stem elongation phase is kind of what we're looking at. So Dr. Richie, do you have any I think we've covered most of the things on our fall wheat checklist. Make sure we have our ducks in a row.

⁓ Is there anything else when it comes to thinking about fertility as we go into this wheat season that you want to cover that we haven't?

Dr. Ritchey (36:10)
There's one thing that has come to mind since we've been talking. We don't have a lot of producers do it, but it does catch several acres, but it's the use of a green seeker doing NDVI measurements and making our applications based on that NDVI. So Lloyd Murdoch and Greg Schwab worked to develop different algorithms to come up with that.

They will make that application. They will adjust their second application based on what a nitrogen enriched strip has. So they'll take a strip and maximize the nitrogen, 120, maybe 150 pounds of nitrogen. And then their differential NDVI will be based off of that. And then depending on where that difference is, there's recommendations, nitrogen recommendations based on that. So it's an active system to apply nitrogen in season. And it doesn't necessarily reduce the total nitrogen, but it puts the nitrogen where it needs to be. If you have, you know, if a blanket application, if you have an area that doesn't need that much, well, it's probably gonna get it.

If you're using a ⁓ sprayer or a spreader. With this, you can actively manage it, put more where you need it and less where you need it. And typically it's gonna maybe reduce your nitrogen just a little bit, but typically increase your yields a little bit. So it's another tool in the toolbox we can use. A little bit more involved with it and you have to have that nitrogen enriched strip for each field or at least each variety.

Different fields are going to behave differently. But it's something that we can do. And if you have enough weed acres, that's something to consider.

Dwane Miller (38:06)
Yeah, that's some pretty interesting technology when you talk about that and a great point that you have to have that high check area for ideally in each field to make that work as part of your system.

All right, so one last thing One final thing that you talked about and maybe piqued our interest a little bit and give us a couple details about is grazing some of this wheat, Dr. Ritchie.

Dr. Ritchey (38:31)
Okay, well, when I first started here, our beef cattle specialist had just come back from a trip out west and he said, Edwin, they're grazing wheat out there. I don't know why we don't do this here. That's something we should be able to do. So we did a little bit of research. wasn't really, I guess, from a statistical standpoint, we'll say it was a demonstration, but we took enough data that we feel like we gained some information. And what the premise of it is, is the planet

and then get that fall growth and manage it a little bit differently, maybe push it a little bit harder. But then when the ground is either frozen or before it gets muddy, we'll come in there and graze it prior to, prior to jointing. We'll get several days of grazing off of it. They'll cut that wheat back, but we're not eating the primary, the head out. And it will come on and make a good, ⁓ good, decent wheat crop. The one year we had normalish conditions. We lost about seven bushels of wheat by grazing it, which at that time was about $50. were looking at $7 wheat. Well, we put on 150 pounds worth of game. So with the economics of cattle right now, running that wheat through your cattle might be more economically beneficial to your bottom line.

than running it through a combine if you even graze it all the way out. But we're trying to do the dual-carpus, graze it, pull them off and let it continue to grow and then harvest it. On the flip side, if wheat's not very valuable and cattle are and you're short on hay, it might be worth grazing it all the way out and then like using it as a cover crop or just a winter annual forage and then move on to planting your full season soybeans.

head start on your soybean planting. So that's just something we're playing with it. We're looking forward to trying to come up with some good answers.

Dwane Miller (40:34)
Pretty neat concept. Like you had mentioned, it may not fit into everybody's system or rotation or what they're doing. But if you've got those animals on the farm and have the capability to do that, that sounds pretty neat. Any idea what you guys are calculating what they're taking off, yield-wise in dry matter or anything like that off that wheat crop?

Dr. Ritchey (40:58)
I will have to get back to you on that. We've got a few measurements from several years ago. Last year we were playing catch up the whole season. We never did get anything timely. This year hopefully we'll have some answers to that question. But the short answer is I cannot provide you any dry matter removal bases. But we were saving several days of either grazing stockpile of SQ or feed. ⁓

Dwane Miller (41:26)
Yeah, here in Pennsylvania, you know, we've had a pretty prolonged dry spell. Hay crops are short and folks right now in a pasture situation are feeding, starting to feed that winter hay that they had earmarked for later in the season. ⁓ boy, this could have a possibility of some use if we'd figure out how to do it up here too.

Interesting project, that's for sure. That's for sure.

Dr. Ritchey (41:55)
hoping to get a lot more information on that and share it with people. It's another tool in the system.

Dwane Miller (42:02)
Yeah, great, great. Any last words of advice or wisdom before we close up here? We really appreciate you joining us.

Dr. Ritchey (42:11)
I'm going go back to something the soil fertility guy I think should always manage. It all starts with a good soil sample and a good soil test. So that's where it all starts.

Dwane Miller (42:22)
We'll circle back to where we started from, ⁓

Dr. Ritchey (42:26)
Right, that's right. And like us, I'm sure you guys are always available to help. Pick up the phone, shoot us an email. We're happy to talk with you. That's our job and that's what we enjoy doing.

Dwane Miller (42:39)
Okay. Well, once again, I'd like to thank Dr. Edwin Ritchie from the University of Kentucky. He's an extension soil specialist at the Western Research Station. So thanks again, Dr. Ritchie. And thanks to our listeners. We'll catch you next time on the Agronomy Highlights podcast.