Great Bend Tribune
Published April 22, 2018
This column is being written Friday so hopefully the promised rainfall has occurred by the time you read this. One last column, hopefully, for a while regarding crops and agriculture. First, let’s discuss the cold weather/stormy conditions of the last weekend.
The low on the 14th was 26, the 15th 23 and the 16th 18 at the weather station just west of Great Bend. Other area reporting sites recorded lower temperatures. These below freezing temperatures lasted for several hours. Cold enough, long enough to damage wheat growing points. In a normal year wheat would be taller and much further along in development and significant damage to wheat fields very likely. However, this year development is lagging significantly and that is a good thing. Growing points were near the soil surface and soil temperatures may have been warm enough to mitigate damage. And some areas had snow/ice accumulation on the ground and while not much it may have helped protect the wheat. On the negative side, soil moisture was lacking and most importantly the high on April 12th was in the upper 90s for the area so there was a swing of around seventy degrees within forty-eight hours. This definitely left wheat vulnerable and less able to cope.
Leaf burn was noticeable in many fields this week. If that is all the damage there was, this shouldn’t present a problem and is mostly cosmetic. The cool conditions are helping wheat to cope. Some damage may not show up until heading or above normal temperatures. If wheat is jointed, carefully splitting the stem and locating the developing head can indicate damage. A bright green head should be fine but a water soaked wilted looking head indicates significant damage. Or there may be some developing flowers that are damaged and this may not show up until heading.
For corn that was planted, and there was some, the cold didn’t hurt anything. However, cold soil conditions slow germination significantly and if the average two inch soil temperature doesn’t head toward sixty degrees there may be uneven emergence and growth and if this continues, it is possible for soil temperatures to hurt yield potential. The oats in the area are fine but lagging in development. If being cut for hay, oats should still produce with rainfall and mild weather. The biggest challenges outside of moisture and heat is the onset of leaf diseases. Alfalfa in the area appeared to weather the cold in pretty good shape and the cold should have dinged alfalfa insect pests.
What little moisture received the weekend of the 15th did nothing to alleviate extreme drought conditions in the area. The forecast for this weekend is for an inch or less of precipitation and while this helps, it does nothing to alleviate drought conditions.
One final thought. The winds over the last week demonstrated that Kansas is still quite vulnerable to soil wind erosion. So much so that roads had to be closed due to zero visibility.