At the Lahoma Wheat Field Day, Associate Farm Editor Reagan Calk had the chance to visit with Oklahoma State University small grains extension specialist, Amanda Silva, about Oklahoma’s wheat crop and more.
“I am excited to see that with this rain we have been receiving these past weeks- how it is helping the wheat that we have out there,” Silva said.
If the weather continued to be hot and dry, Silva said there was concern that some fields would have no crop at all. Already, Silva said, many wheat crops have been cut for hay or abandoned due to the drought.
“For the wheat fields that we had out there, this rain and cool weather is really helping with grain filling, and I am sure it is going to help with test wheat as well,” Silva said.
For those who have not cut their fields for hay, Silva said this moisture will make a big difference when it comes to finishing out the crop.
“In some cases, we may see a 20–30-bushel wheat yield,” Silva said. “It is not very big, but we were at a point where we were seeing zero at fields that we saw in several cases.”
The drought has uncovered the ability of different varieties to bounce back, Silva said, as all varieties are different in their ability to handle drought. There are 47 different varieties planted in the trials, Silva said, so producers have plenty of available tools.
“Usually, the traits they are looking for are grazability, so especially the ability of a variety to come back from grazing,” Silva said. “They can see that. Maybe not here at Lahoma, because we don’t have dual-purpose testing here, but we do have it in some other locations, and they can see that in our program.”
