Carolina Winter Wheat

It’s no secret that the winter wheat crop in the Carolinas has struggled this year, and according to NC State’s Dr. Ron Heiniger, the struggles aren’t over:

“It’s been a very interesting season for wheat. We started off not knowing if it was ever going to grow and then we finally got a few warm days and it shot up and when it does that it uses the nutrients quickly. So any weakness in the soil or the roots will show up quickly. We’ve had a lot of different symptoms; sulfur, manganese, copper, magnesium. Then we now have some leaf beetles and stripe rust.”
 

If that’s not enough, Heiniger says we may not be done with insects or disease:
 

“I think we will still see a lot of common rust and some other things.”
 

National Statistics show as much as 25% abandonment of winter wheat nationwide. NC State Extension Small Grain Specialist Dr. Randy Weisz has posted several short videos demonstrating this year’s wheat issues. Those videos can be found at www.smallgrains.ncsu.edu