“Let the soil temp, not the calendar be your guide”

By seeding early there are risk factors that we have to keep in mind. One especially being the risk of early spring frost damage. Early season frost can put the plant under a great deal of stress, which can result in making the tips and margins of the leaves to become brown and brittle. However seeding slightly over the recommended soil temperature of 5 degrees, with adequate soil moisture at the proper seeding depth, As well, as avoiding fields with large quantities of crop residue, can be essential to germination and plant emergence. Another important factor to account for when seeding early is ensuring that you are using the proper seed treatment and using high quality seed with an optimum vigor and germination. This helps maintain plant populations if the early season frost. event occurs By utilizing these factors you can reduce the risk of soil-borne diseases and infestation of other pathogens or pests that detrimentally affect the crop.

For the “Ultra Early Wheat” trial we based it on two different seeding dates and soil temperatures. We had found that by April 23 (Figure 1a) was the optimum time to start seeding, because at one inch the soil temperature was at 6 degrees. Exactly 15 days later we seeded our second seeding date on May 8 (Figure 2a) with a soil temperature of 6 degrees. Originally the soil temperature was to ideally be around 10 to 12 degrees. The weather changes throughout the week prior to seeding may have been the reason the low soil temperature rating. It was fascinating to see that the staging of the later seeded crop is still around the same as the first seeding date (Figure 2b & 3b). Although the warm weather we have been having for the past few weeks may be the culprit for the plant’s rapid growth.