Strategies and Tips For A Successful Wheat Crop

The subject is strategies and tips for a successful wheat crop. Some of you may have already planted your wheat this year, but we thought, you know what, it's still, uh, there's a lot to be done to create a big successful wheat crop. And so we're gonna start right here where we are. Uh, Johnny Rell said something, uh, when we start off. He said, I don't change my strategy. I, he does do double cropping. He puts something behind almost, uh, almost all of his acres of wheat. And let's start off with you. You're in the mid part of the country. In other words, you're in Tennessee. Uh, is your wheat planted or do you go later on wheat? What's your strategy on wheat this year? Is it gonna change from last year? Just get us going here. Mr. Johnny Rell. Yeah, We hadn't started planting wheat yet. We'll start probably next week. We'll plant wheat through the end of October, so we're about a week off from planting on it. And generally everyone starts planting around the 10th to the 15th of October here. Okay. You'll be done in two weeks. You're gonna start 10th or 15th, you'll be done before Halloween. How many acres a wheat you're gonna put out, uh, because you got a, a situation where you are, you do double crop almost every wheat acre get something behind it, correct? Yeah, We'll raise probably around 3000 acres this year. Okay. So is there anything you're gonna change between, you know, starting in October? Is there anything you're gonna change between now and when that combine runs on this year's wheat versus last year's wheat? Uh, maybe being a little more timely. We got educated a little bit last year on aphids, so, uh, we've never really had a aphid issue. And last year we were so wet we missed a fertilized timing where we usually add, uh, insecticide to the liquid fertilize. But we used dry fertilizer with a plane because it rained for about six weeks straight. And we had aphids real bad this year kind of come in and give us a, a virus in our wheat that really, I think took some of the top end of our wheat off. So we've never had that happen, but we never allowed it to happen. So we're gonna make sure that that doesn't happen again. So Is there a treatment? Could you bail it out? Is there something that you went out there because the APIs aren't the problem, it was the disease afterwards, is that what I'm understanding? Yeah, The APIs actually, I guess technically the host that allows it into the, the virus into the plant. But no, once you, once it's infected, it's over. You're far as I know, you know, it was there. So There's no, there's no, you did not do a treatment. You didn't hit it with a second treatment because of the aphid bringing in the Yeah, We, we, we, uh, we addressed the aphid, but by the time we could address them with a sprayer over the top or anything like that, it was too late, so. Got it. Lee Lubert is nodding his head. What, what do this is, this is kind of probably new to some people. Uh, what, what is you're nodding your head about that you can educate us about? You're as wheat, you're as wheat centric as anybody on the, on the call right now. Uh, aphids and, uh, uh, bird cherry aphids are a lot more of a problem than what people think in winter wheat. As far north as we are. Uh, we have issues with them. It can be from a year with zero to 10 to 50% of our weed acres are treated. And even as far north as we are, we can have 'em move in in the fall when we do weed on wheat, when we get enough growth and they move in around the crown and on our weed on weeded acres, we've actually gone in. We have to do early scouting. I mean, this is the first quarter you're just getting your crop started. And we've gone in with insecticide, uh, to kill the bird cherry because all it takes is one when he injects, uh, what he has, um, what he's affected by into the plant, every aphid that feeds on that gets it. And, uh, then that, uh, turns into barley yellow dwarf. And there is no cure for that. So the infections can happen very early in the game. And, uh, we've seen it where it can really hurt you on yield. And a lot of people don't realize they're there because they can be right when you're going into dormancy and they can be down in the crown. We've taken wheat plants when it's eight degrees out and went and shook 'em out on the dash of a pickup and all of a sudden they'll start to move. Uh, we have actually, uh, waited for the temperatures to warm up and sprayed right before freeze up if we started catching them early. Uh, because once they start infecting plants, uh, my brother and I joke, we, we call it weed aids. There's, there's no cure. Once you got it, you got it. It's totally preventative and early scouting and, uh, they're affecting a lot of acres that guys do not realize. Okay. So while let's stay on aphids because this is kind of new to me, and I certainly, I'm not as nozzle about wheat as you, but I've not known about wheats. First off, wheat having an aphid problem, first off, that comes that early. Secondly, that Johnny said once you got it, you got a problem. But you're saying you can save the yield if you have the aphid. It doesn't mean you can't still har salvage a yield, but once the aphid is done, the damage to Johnny's point, then you're screwed. It's strictly a proactive plan. Early scouting, uh, anything that we start getting early growth on in our northern environment, we have to be scouting intensively because we realized for years prior we were losing yield and not catching it. And once we started treating our wheat on wheat acres, uh, that we get well established that we plant a little bit earlier than our soybean stubble. Uh, what what we did is we started adding the combination of a P G R and actually a fungicide prior to the ground freezing up. And it pays every time. Okay. So can you speak to any of that, Johnny, since you're the one that brought up David problem that I wanna hear from Temple. Is there, is there something is, in other words, he's in a completely different part of the world. Uh, he's talking about ground freezing up, which almost doesn't even happen where you are. Same set of same set of results, different set of circumstances, treatment. Do you do anything the same way as him or does it not matter? Yeah, Most of the time we make multiple applications to treat prevental. Uh, just a cheap insecticide ide usually knocks 'em out for us. So just last year everything was good in December and then January it warmed up, but it was extremely wet. And that's what got us once the, once it warms up, they can spread pretty quick and you, you don't realize that the air, you start seeing the signs in the wheat. I mean, and by the end it's way too, like you start seeing that barley yellow dwarf, you start seeing that yelling and stuff like that, you're in trouble. Can you touch on that a little bit? There might be somebody tuning in here that says AG ignorant on the wheat, uh, uh, wheat, uh, parasites as I am bartle weather dorf. What are we calling this thing and what's it look like? So Like barley yellow drawer is what it's, I guess what the name is to most farmers. Um, you know, that's just what we call it, barley yellow drawer. So, Okay. What, what is it? It's just a virus that, that AFib transmits into the wheat. And going off what Lee said, I learned something there. I didn't know every AFI didn't have it, but once it injected into the plant, that's how it gets spread. So it makes sense. But, you know, if you get afis start ramping up and you get some warm weather, like Lee said, they can, they can multiply rapidly and spread that virus pretty quick. Got it. Lee, do me a favor. You talked about scouting being the most, uh, critical aspect of aphid control or then preventing barley, yellow ukulele dwarf. Anyway, how do I scout for aphids? Uh, you're gonna be going out early, uh, as soon as you, once we start early, Early in the morning or early in the, in the, in the wheat crop season. Early in the season, uh, after we get emergence, we will be scouting in our environment in, uh, mid and late October and into November. Uh, we have sprayed wheat as late as the 20th of November, right before freeze up. Uh, as the wheat gets more established, they come in and they, they're where the, where your growth is, and then your crown is right at ground level. They love to come in under the crown and they're tucked in there. And literally you've got to pull that up and visually look. And they're about to the size of a grain of pepper. So rather elusive. Uh, and if you find one, you've gonna, you're gonna have a lot. Okay. And, and they'll sit around the crown and as they inject the toxin, uh, it's over. You've already, you talked About finding them. You spoke on the subject of finding 'em even in fall before you go into dormancy. Yeah. And then you just said, then you're coming back again by the time a crown in Gregory, South Dakota when there's a crown on the wheat, you're talking now it's late April? No, this is in the fall. We're we're Oh, in the fall you're talking about this. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, and as far north as we are, we figured this out. So, and where do, where are they coming from? They're coming from the south. So we know it's a real issue because we're catching 'em up here and seeing the damage even in the late fall. And they're coming from the south. Yeah. And so they, they can almost reverse migrate. So then if you go, if you are safe going into fall and you have a hard freeze, are you usually safe? Uh, come april, may, or is there still gonna be, do you still have this issue in the spring? Uh, the, well, if they were there in the fall, they've already done their damage. They've injected if they're Not there in the fall, are you safe in the spring and summer? Uh, you're gonna have to check early spring too. We have, uh, also seen 'em come in in the spring, uh, about flag leaf time. And when heads emerge and when they inject the toxin, then your flag leaf can actually turn dark purple and you can get, uh, striations on your plant. And that is actually from the toxin from when they inject it in. And the purple can go all the way up to the base of your head. John's nodding his head. Is this consistent with you? Yeah, that's right. All right. Alright. Temple Rhodes is coming from us from the edge of one of his fields. He's got his headset on. He is sitting in a combine, by the way. It's mostly a photo op. He actually was just hanging out watching some game shows before he did this. But he wants to make sure that he keeps credibility at the farmers temple. I know you're gonna put your camera, I know you're not gonna put your camera on because we'll find out, uh, you know, your charade. But anyway, give us the scoop aphids diseased wheat. Take us from the aphid topic to the next topic you wanna share. So, um, these guys are right that, so I mean, I think that the, the key that we all need to remember is, is, you know, we're all trying to be proactive. Proactive. You know, we All these curves, so we're trying to make sure that, you know, we're not gonna have this problem. So that's what we're worried about too. So as soon as, as soon as the week comes up, you know, we're planting wheat right now. Yeah. Um, and I'm trying to get, you know, of course everybody's like, oh, you're planting wheat too early. 'cause you know, the saw fly date and all that, and I don't even know what the saw fly. It really is the hessing fly. 'cause I haven't seen him yet, but I continue to plant earlier and earlier every year. I generally plant around September 25th, somewhere around there. And, um, now this year, I, I, I just started it here the last couple days. But what we try to do is we try to plant early and we try to get the crop up early and we try to get as many tillers as we can in the fall because we know that fall tillers accounts for about 65, 70% of my crop. So I'm trying to get as many tillers out there as I possibly can. Each one of them tillers is gonna make a head. So I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to boost root growth, um, have a really healthy plant going into the, into the dormancy and be protected by, I don't want know if it's no bugs, no nothing. I'm heavy insecticide user. Um, probably, I don't know whether I should have said that or not, but I don't want any bugs. I don't want nothing eating on anything like that's a problem. Um, I don't wanna see no holes, no diseases, no nothing. So, um, I'm big on all that. So as soon as my crop comes up and as soon as I can see down the row, I'm putting some application on now I'm just gonna go ahead and share the program that I use. And then these guys can tell you about the program that they use. So in the fall when it comes up, you know, we're putting a herbicide treatment on, 'cause we have, we have to deal with rye grass, which Italian rye grass is a real problem for a lot of people all across the country. And it's a real problem in wheat. I'm trying to Make up to, to, to the, to the person that might be in a completely different geography that doesn't battle this. We're not talking about using herbicide to terminate some kind of a cover crop that you had on somehow. No. In October we're talking about, uh, we're talking about a pre-emergence chemical that basically, or it's supposed to, it keeps that Italian rod grass from breaking through your crop and you having to deal with it the whole rest of The year. We're talking about an invasive, we're talking about an invasive species Yeah. Of weed that has become a bit more prevalent, if I'm not mistaken, in the, in center, in the, in the Roundup area, right? Yes. Yep. It's become very prevalent. And Italian rod grass in our area is Roundup resistant. So even if you had something weird like roundup ready wheat, it wouldn't make any difference. 'cause you can't kill it. Right. I mean, that stuff is tough. So we're trying to get ahead of that. So we're putting some, um, some pre-emergence chemicals down there. We're putting that down as soon as we can see down that row and see that wheat emerge and get up, we're putting that on and we're putting fungicide on. You know, that's something that I've been doing for quite a few years now and people thought that I was crazy for doing that. And you and I did a podcast on that Damien, um, a while back. But we're seeing, the problem is, is that our stove is breaking down. If you know, I'm a lot of times going in behind corn and that stover is harboring disease. Well, it's just that pathogen is just looking for a new host. Well, when your wheat crop comes up, that's the new host. It's being hosted all through the winter. And we forget, we tend to forget these things, you know, because we plant that crop, we're like, oh, you know, it's over. I'm just gonna let it sit out there and grow. It's in dormancy, everything's okay. I'll worry about it in the spring when it gets growing. Well, you've already got disease out there, so I'm trying to be proactive and I'm trying to kind of not really sterilize the soil or not really sterilize anything. I'm just trying to protect that crop to get it in the dormancy so I can have a really good crop coming into the spring. That's a super healthy. So I'm doing that. I'm putting it real, Real, real quickly though, while we're, we're talking about going into the winter before spring, and you talked about a couple of things there. I just wanna make sure we're clarifying this for our listeners and viewers. Uh, first off, if you, if you're talking about your herbicide pass, you're doing that with, again, that that's, that's stuff with residual, you know, we're not talking about just killing some dandelions that are gonna be there in the wintertime. You're talking about stuff that has residual That's right. Because you've got some more That's right. Resistant things to take care of. That might be unusual for some people, but it might be a problem that others might have moving forward, I think. Yep. And That's exactly I wanted to point out was if you are, uh, one of our viewers Will, has given us the link to the podcast that you and I and Chad did, how we produce big yield, high profit wheat. Uh, so if you're viewing this right now, click on that link. Don't go to it, stay on with us. But then there'll be opening your browser and you can read it after we're done. Or tomorrow morning. Go ahead. So, um, so those are a couple things that we do. We also, when we make that pass across there, we're putting a little bit of fertility in there. We're loading heavy on micronutrients that are gonna get us through the winter, trying to make a really, really good healthy plant. And then we're putting mega grow in there. And the reason that we're doing all that is, is we're trying to build a humongous root system so it over winters better. You know, we want a lot of tillers. We want a bigger, healthy root system. So it over winters better. And then when we come out in the spring, we're coming out, we're coming out racing, and that's what we wanna do. So that's what, that's kind of how my fall program kind of sits Now. I don't, I don't know how these other guys' program is compared to what mine is. All right, well we're gonna hear from them. I also wanna point out that maybe everybody should just be hearing about your program because dear viewer listener, the boys of extreme ag have done this now two years in a row. They've done the wheat wager. It's mostly just for a, a funny trophy. And it, it's one of those things 'cause these guys are somewhat competitive, shall we say. Uh, temple was our winner for Wheat Wager 20, wheat Challenge 2023. Uh, by the way, the wagers that were done before, they actually put money and prizes up and the word was somebody from Henderson, Alabama didn't pay, uh, Kelly. And so who knows, we want him in this wheat wager. Anyway, uh, temple one, a hundred fifty eight bushels per acre. That's pretty remarkable. 158 bushels per acre temple. Um, Kevin did 116. Third place was Matt at 114. Chad edged out by Matt by one bushel at one 13, Johnny at 109 bushels Kelly. Well anyway, Kelly also participated, they told me way back the time they told, they told me way back when, when I was like an f f a, uh, soil judging and livestock judging. The one that sucks so badly. You don't say what place they had or what their bushels were. You just say also participating was Kelly Garrett. So anyway, now that we sold that, Kevin, you were the in Kelly's defense, he had a rough year. A rough, it was a rough it was a rough time. He had a rough year. Can we do this? Um, lemme do this now. Kevin, you were the number two, uh, placer on the Wheat Challenge. You joined in here from your truck, you were in the combine, uh, until late. What has not been talked about so far that you want to contribute about strategies and tips for successful wheat crop? I didn't get to hear all the temples, but the one thing here really a**l about is managing the residue. We're typically putting the corn in or the wheat in behind corn stove. All right, you're cutting out Kevin. Uh, we didn't, we didn't hear you. Alright, Lemme cut the video off. Yeah, cut your video off and maybe the signal will go to your sound. Okay. One thing you did, we heard you talk about managing residue and then stove. Yes. So we're trying to manage the, we've got such a big corn crop this year. We're really going a little extra with our vertical tillage trying to get those corn stalks chopped up. We, we chopped that corn. Uh, when we picked it. We picked pretty low to the ground intentionally to try to get as much residue tore up as we could. Typically, it's not that big of a problem for us, we wanna keep it, but the problem is, is as Temple was talking about earlier, you have the disease from the already there that carries over into that wheat and we wanna stop it. So that's what we're trying to do, get rid of that residue and then we'll follow the same program as what temple's got. Speaking of temple's program, uh, residue management, uh, before we, uh, temple, before we opened up, we talked, we talked about the fact that you have extra knives on the back of your, uh, combine. Uh, tell us about that and the purpose of it. In other words, you shred your stuff up extra fine. Um, apparently it's because, uh, it gives you a result. Tell us about that and, and is this something I can do to my combine? Yeah. So, um, Johnny and I have been talking about it and we were having trouble with it spreading residue and I called Johnny and said, man, I, I can't, I can't seem to get my, my straw, you know, chewed up enough. So, um, you know, he was telling me about these different knives and we used, we ended up putting these different knives on our combine and it's like a specialty order deal. Um, and John Deere, now I got a John Deere, I got John Deere and Alexion a Klaus, but the Klaus does a lot better job of like shredding it real, real, really, really fine. So these new knives that we got, um, it's like a rated edge, but it's like super, super duper sharp and it doesn't have like a, I don't know, it is hard to explain. It's a straight knife, um, with a rated edge on it versus the old ones were a straight knife. But then it had a, like a, a beveled edge on it where it, it, it's supposed to create more wind flow, but we couldn't get the straw to chop up fine enough. So it didn't matter what material we were in, whether it was corn or whether it was in, um, wheat or whether we were in soybeans, we, we weren't chopping it up fine enough to spread it out to get it to break down, right? So we ended up with this problem that we were fighting to trying to get the planters through. So when we switched over to this and I was called Johnny and told Johnny about it, I mean, I'm talking about it, choose this stuff to dust, I mean dust and it spreads way better. So when, when we're talking about something like what Kevin's just talking about, having to handle that residue anytime that we can knock that stuff down fine or do a better job spreading it out, it's a lot easier to handle for when that vertical tillage tool comes in there to do it. Now Kevin and I kind of do things similarly. Like he works a ground up with a vertical tillage tool and then he spreads his wheat and then he'll work it in. I built a tool, um, where I have a air seater that blows seed on, um, and it pulls a vertical tillage tool. I don't use a green drill or anything like that. I got away, I got away from that years ago 'cause I couldn't get my crop in fast enough a lot of times. So I actually built this tool for cover crop at first. Well, we ended up, our cover crop looked so good with it. We were like, well hell, we can cut out one pass and we can plant it and, and work ground all at the same time. So that's what we use. So I mean, I know that there's a million different ways that you can plant wheat. Um, you know, but that, you know, when we talk about planters and planter facings and all that, you know, Kevin's got a really good analogy of, of, you know, what it cost us per acre and per row to have all these things to rebuild it and, and the cost of all that metal. Well that's kind of what deterred me away from, we had 36 foot air drills and they were so expensive to work on. And when you divided that amongst the acres of the craft that you had to put in a year, it was costing a fortune. So we decided that we were gonna do something a little bit different. So I figured if it would cost me, you know, five or seven to 10 bushels less an acre to do it my way because I could get it in a lot faster and get it in a timely manner. It was way worth the money to kind of sit back and, and take a yield drag. But I'm not getting a yield drag with it. And Kevin's not getting a yield drag by spreading it and planting it like that. Now we have to increase our rates by doing that. You know, if I was normally gonna be a guy that planted 1.6 million plants per acre on wheat, you might wanna jump that up to 2.1 or or to 2 million. Um, I plant my wheat a lot quicker. You're you're using a lot more seed. You're also just fling it up. By the way, there's probably people that are tuning in right now. They're saying they're kind of calling BSS on this. You're saying that you did 158 bushel wheat per acre and set the record and you did that by flinging it out there and dragging around, uh, a vertical tillage piece of equipment. Pretty Much. So I gotta, so no, wait, Wait a minute. Is all this fancy? Hey wait, I'm gonna go to Lee the master up there in Gregory, South Dakota. Lee, it sounds like maybe all we need to be a wheat producer is a high a, a high horsepower tractor and some method of flinging copious amounts of wheat on the ground and then hitting it with a, a new fashioned disc. Am I right? I guess we gotta start checking into things, I guess. Yeah, Yeah. How do you do your wheat? You do it the old fashioned way with a drill. Uh, 30 years ago we did some broadcast wheat, uh, but that was before vertical tillage, so it was hard to get the consistency of getting it worked in. Uh, we have ran grain drills, different spacings. Uh, we have the best luck with no-till air seeders and uh, 'cause we're gotta cut through the residue and we have to have consistency in our depth to survive the winter. So for us, uh, and then, and then we're planting lower populations. You don't do 2 million seeds per acre or whatever it was. He said, We've actually been bringing our populations down lower and lower. And when I got to meet the guys who have raised the world record of, uh, wheat and barley out of New Zealand, first thing in the first half hour, we really hit it off. We were talking, they said, all you guys in America plant too damn thick. And, uh, we've been doing some playing around. We're gonna do some very radical trials in population going as low, as low as six and 700,000 seats per acre this year in large blocks with the same management and focus on tillage man tiller management throughout the season and try to match or beat the yield of our regular rate. Um, what I like here, and we're gonna go to Johnny 'cause he's sitting back, uh, we just heard a rate from 2.1 million seeds per acre to, we're gonna do one third of that at six to 700,000. Uh, what's the right answer, Johnny? Yeah, we're we playing a lot like Temple and Kevin? Uh, five, six. You Just fling, you just fling it out there and send your kid out with a disc? Yeah, a few years ago we were running drills and we were running 'em for seven, eight days a year and then they were just setting, so we decided, we bought some Alford r t s machines, I think is what they're called. But we actually, depending on the year, we'll, we'll throw it on top of the ground and one pass it or two pass it if we have to, if the residue is high. So we kind of got away from the drills also. And we plan about 1.8 million by doing that. So All joking aside, does it, does it matter about the residue? I mean, you're going into corn stalks, is that what we're talking about? So, and then Temple, your thing is going into corn stalks and, and doing the vertical tillage and and that's what we're talking about. Yeah, I'm going into cornstalks. Alright Kevin, if you were going to somehow go into beans or some other thing, or wheat on wheat the way, uh, lead does, would you vary your planting, uh, methods or would you still do what they're talking about where you fling it out there and, and run across with vertical tilts? Uh, the, the wheat, um, hold on here. So with the, um, cut the video off so you can hear me down here at total me where we have the field day, it ain't great service here as you'll remember. Yep. But going behind soybeans is kind of the easy button with wheat because you got a lagoon following the grass. Yeah. So you have less disease carry over and you also get your nitrogen from the, where the soybeans is built back into the soil. It's a beautiful thing. It just does not work with the rotation in the south because we like to have our corn following that soybean crop and we want the wheat straw with our soybeans double crop into the wheat. And then that thick of straw prevents the sunlight from hitting the skull. That is the true benefit of the, of the wheat for us. There's not a lot of money in the wheat crop on our end, but where the money comes in is that straw mat to no-till that corn crop into. Okay. So the way the method, the method that works best for you is you put, you like to do wheat into cornstalks and then cornstalk cornstalks are followed by beans and then beans you go into, then what's the, the, what's the methodology after that Then we'll go corn into the soybeans. That's got the thick mat of straw left from the wheat crop. Okay. All right. Uh, rounding the basis is something you talk about a lot, Lee. So, uh, before we get into that, we gotta take a couple of questions, but I wanna hear about rounding the basis. And you also are big on stress mitigation. You sent something to Will before we begin tonight's webinar. So I wanna get into that before we do, we got a question from, uh, Joel Roner, and we also have a comment from Matt Miles. I'm sitting at Matt Miles right now in McGee, Arkansas, and he says we planted 1.1 million and we also planted 900,000. The 900,000 seed rate population rate on wheat was better. Uh, Matt Miles won wheat wager number one. Uh, and now Temple, uh, one we wager number two, Joel Roner says, Lee, when you say no-till air drill, are you talking about a single disc or a shank hoe drill? Uh, describe your no-till air drill. Uh, we are single disc John Deere. And the one thing we like about that and, uh, we can get better consistency than, uh, like running a John Deere hoe drill, but now, uh, BGO out of Canada, I'm pro maybe not pronouncing that correctly, they're coming more in United States and they have their para link system and they have some very advanced seating systems where they're getting shanks to have the consistency of a blade drill. So there's something to look at, but that's the one thing that every time we get the consistency of the blade and get that consistent depth and the seat in the bottom of the trench, we gain yield. So single disc works best in our environment of everything that we've ever trialed. Got it. I'm gonna ask a silly question to the three guys that, uh, Johnny's point, obviously, why have drills that are sitting around a couple of drills that you only use for a couple of days a year and then using a different method you're not getting seed to. So contact with a bunch of that wheat that you throw out there. If you're just doing one pass with vertical tillage, am I right? Does the, does it, am I, is it safe to say that wheat is the, the crop that doesn't need seed to soil contact and it'll still come up and, and produce a plant? Yeah, you, it'll still come up, but you're a lot better off getting it covered up by the ground some. And it's pretty amazing. You get a real good coverage with a lot of these vertical tillages now. They, they do a great job and like I said, you're, I think one out of three years we can do it one pass this year, it's gonna take two with the residue we have. So we're actually running right now making the first pass going, throw the wheat on top of the ground next week and make a second pass, cover it up, be done with it. It's kind of what we're gonna go to this year. All Right. So while we're talking about strategies, Kevin and Temple, do you do one pass or two pass with the vertical tillage to get the, get the right seed to soil contact? Well, I, the reason that I did, I built that machine that I built. I can go out there and I can make one pass and, and seed it and then come right back behind it with another vertical tillage. And then I use a packer, I'll put a solid wheel packer behind my vertical tillage and I just kind of pack it all in and that way I get, I know I get all the air pushed out and I'm getting a little bit better seat of so contact and that's how it's gotten a lot better for me. Right. And then Kevin, Traditionally we run two passes with a Krause accelerator. Um, this year we bought a new John Deere vt, uh, vertical tillage tool. It's got a lot more aggressive, goes up to 12 degrees. We're gonna see how it does. We may do one pass, we're doing one pass with their cover crops and the barley looks fabulous coming up behind it right now. So same way, how Are you flinging? So you do one pass, then the seeding, then another pass with the vertical till. What's the flinger, what's, what's getting, what's, how's it, what's the method of getting it out there? Uh, we spreader truck, big floater trucks, Same thing I put on dry fertilizer or lime with Same thing. Yep. Got it. Hey, let's go to Lee then about the rounding the bases. So you talked about stress mitigation, uh, Kelly Garrett's favorite statement. Uh, and if you're an American farmer, you love growing corn. Uh, then we've talked about soybeans get treated like second class citizens. It seems like if that's the pecking order, wheat gets tossed back where it's basically almost like you're trying to seed a ditch to try and keep it from a eroding. That's about how we treat wheat. So you obviously love your wheat the way other people love corn and that's why you make money on it. What's the, what's the stress mitigation or the rounding, the basis or the late season stuff that you do that you think most people don't because they say, oh, screw it, it's just wheat. Uh, it starts when we're planting, when we're treating our seed, uh, we're doing biologicals along with uh, multi-mode chemistry. And uh, we're also putting PGRs in a very low one to 1000 dilution rate on our seed. So it's very low cost. And, uh, InCorp incorporating multiple, uh, modes of biologicals for solubilizing phosphorus primarily. And then on the chemistry, You're that you're doing that early, you're doing that the, the multiple of biologicals, you're, you're doing that at time of planting or like first pass? That's, that's as we're getting ready to plant, uh, today I treated up two loads 'cause we're seeding as we speak. And, uh, then, uh, doing a, uh, uh, we're looking for the best chemistry seed treatment that we can get because that helps with our winter survivability and also crown development. And then we need a good insecticide in because of wireworms. And wireworms are another hidden thread out there. They're a lot worse than people think they are. And uh, they can, uh, you know, they're not gonna totally wipe out your stand, but if they're taking 10% of it, you're not gonna notice it so much and they're gonna injure a lot of plants. We wanna eliminate that. We want all those seeds being viable, consistent and growing. So stress mitigation, it starts before it ever goes in the ground. Uh, as we're coming into spring, it's gonna be PGS again and, uh, herbicide pass a product like shield, uh, through stress mitigator and we'll even do that again. Uh, stress mitigation will, uh, be brought into the equation into our mix when we are actually at flowering time. And you gotta be very particular what you use because you can't burn the flowers and hurt the pollen. So, uh, we'll use shield twice in the spring. Alright, you just said. All right. There's plenty of people that think that you're wasting your money, you're going over your wheat too much, you put out stuff pre-planting, you put out stuff at time of planting, or at least you've treated the seed. Do you do anything going before winter? Do you do any another pass or is it then, is that it until spring when you do two more passes before harvest? Uh, our wheat on weed acres, we don't do a lot of those. Uh, this year it'll be about 20%. So it'll be a little bit, uh, more to do. But we will try to treat that before it goes into dormancy. Uh, we're actually going to do some acres, uh, uh, on soybeans. We're getting it in here early enough this year, and we have moisture to actually get it to germinate. So we're gonna try to spray some, it could be late October, early November before it goes into dormancy. Uh, we're gonna treat some acres really early on. Soybean, traditionally, we waited till spring on our soybean acres. We're gonna start in the fall. We're gonna start in that first quarter, rounding the bases. I mean by the time spring rolls around, we're already a quarter away through this crop and we've gotta be proactive Early. Uh, we don't have any questions right at the moment. Yes, we do. We have a question. So I'm gonna go to it from Tim Ducker. Is anyone mixing the wheat seed with dry fertilizer and spreading both at the same time? That seems like it's probably something that'd be very easy and, uh, it'd be time efficient. Kevin purchase had a Kevin, do you do that? No, sir. No sir. Okay. We make two trips. We spread the dry fertilizer after we spread the wheat. Okay. This sound like a silly question. If you're driving across there with a spreader, why not just go ahead and do it all at the same time? The rates are running? It would be hard to get the rates calibrated, in my opinion. And personally, I wouldn't want that against the seed either. Okay. So you think the fur fertilize, dry fertilizer, touching the seed, you got some burn or some, some damage to the seed. Is that your concern or the emergence issue? Our humidity, I mean, we got the humidity's low right now, but normally we're hot right now on humid. Uh, I would not wanna put that, that liquid or that dry fertilizer towards It. Okay. And then to go to the rest of it, go ahead. My, that's my opinion. I Well, we're on, we're on here to hear your opinion because we're taking your tips for successful wheat crops. So the question I have then is would spreading them both the same time also, it would cause uneven distribution because of different weights and different, different textures of the products in the, in the, in the hopper. The only, yeah, absolutely. The density of the products. The only way I do it, we do have a G4 split, A split spreader Split and split it up. You could definitely do that, but, uh, we, you know, we're gonna load that truck completely down a week. We're gonna run hard and then we'll come back and get the fertilize on. And are you doing that, you're doing that within a couple of days? That's our goal. Depends on, just depends on if everything runs All right. Temple and, uh, Johnny, is it the same for you? You do two passes? Yeah, no, I do one, I do one pass on ours. We, uh, oh, Tim, go ahead. Sorry. I think No, go ahead Johnny. Yeah, I, I do one pass, we put a blend of fertilizer and one hopper on the truck and we put straight wheat in the back hopper, and we do it all in one pass, but we do split our tracks. So instead of throwing like 86 feet, we'll just cut it in half and make two passes to, to make sure we get good even, uh, distribution of the wheat seed and fertilized. So it does take a little while to go across the ground, but it does help. Okay. So the point is, if you have a separate hopper and then you change your distribution width, it can work just fine. And it may be, it doesn't save you tons of time, but at least then you're still going to the same field, just the one time versus the two time and you're getting the right distribution. That's right. Okay. Temple. Um, I tried it with mine. I I, I was blowing on for fertility with my air cart because those air carts, they can blow on fertility too. So one of the tanks I had, I had fertility in it, and the other one I had wheat in. The problem was, is I couldn't get the right rates. I'm kind of like, Kevin, I, I couldn't get the rate that I wanted and it, it wasn't coming out right, so I quit doing it. So I I make two separate passes. Understood. All right, well we got you on here. Temple, uh, Kelly applied a fall fungicide to his wheat. Uh, we heard about, we heard about Lee saying that you've gotta put on, uh, you know, you gotta look for the aphids and you gotta do that. And we heard from the other guys, uh, fall fungicide on wheat. Why, why do I, it seems like it's the wrong time of the year to worry about it. Well, it does. I mean, like I said, you know, we, we always think about it like this, this is how I thought about it. So we, we worry about our, our crop as far as our corn crop and our bean crop all year long, about how we want to keep it disease free and keep that, that plant as healthy as we can. But we plant wheat, we stick it in the ground and we just, we go hunting in the winter and we don't, we quit worrying about it. We we're not worrying about it at all, and we just demolished a crop that's got disease on it and it's harboring all of that, all of that fungus, and then we're gonna let it host it right onto our new plan. So I decided that let's try some, some fungicide on there. And just by that one fungicide treatment, the first two years I did it, I had like an eight bushel increase just by that alone. Nothing else. It was just, it was just that, that was just all about keeping that plant extra healthy. And we talk about it all the time that healthy plants drive yield. Well, if we start out unhealthy, what have we done? We haven't done anything. We've done nothing but harmed ourself. And I don't even use a full rate. I use like a half to a three quarter rate of fungicide. I'm not even using a lot, but I'm gaining, you know, seven to eight, 10 bushels sometimes by just that. It, it, it's almost silly that we're not doing it. Yeah. So by the way, okay, you're in Centerville, Maryland. Um, there might be somebody that says, hell, I'm up in Minnesota, I can promise you I don't have a fungicide need. Uh, once that wheats up and you're talking about you do yours when the wheat's up at four or five inches, right? Yeah. As soon as it comes up, as soon as it comes up and as soon as it emerges, I'm putting it on and people think you're crazy, but think about this. Well, I I'm, I'm thinking that some of our northern, some of our northern might think you're crazy because they're gonna say there's no fungus issues this time of year. So what's your answer to them? So you've got a crop that you just took out that is corn. And corn or beans will have some type of fungus on it and it's gonna go dormant. And it, and a lot of those are soilborne, they end up in the soil. Well, the first rain that you get, it splashes that, that off and splashes it right onto your, your wheat crop. So it is a problem. I don't, I I don't know that it's not, it's probably worse in the south maybe than what it is. Um, in the north. I don't know, but I'm kind of like in between alls. I can tell you and Lee could probably explain it a lot better, but in my situation, it has worked every time and I will never not do it again. Lee, do you put on fungicide in the fall? We talk about around the basis, talk about stress mitigation. You said quarter number one, I'm gonna get out there and I'm gonna be ahead of this. I'm not gonna treat my wheat like it's a second class citizen. Do you put on fungicide in the fall On our wheat, on wheat acres when it's that tall, we're out there treating it. And like I said, it's gonna be insecticide as a preventative, uh, for uh, bird cherry aphids because once they're there it's too late and we're gonna run and you can run something cheap and a lighter rate of fungicide and a P G R and the dividends have been huge for us. Uh, we've been in wheat fields where guys are going, well it's gonna, it's gonna go dormant. What it's got tan spot, what does that matter? Dead tissue is dead tissue. You're hurting your plant. How is it gonna go into dormancy when it's half dead from tan spot? And we don't want that to happen. We want it to be as healthy and as thriving as it can when it goes into dormancy because people are just like, they walk away like, ah, just wintertime, it's dead. No, there's uh, metabolic processes going on. Respiration, transpiration, the plant's alive and the healthier you brought it into that timeframe, the better you're gonna start in the spring. That's a yield gain. I like the fact that we just almost talked about dead versus dormant. Uh, I mean 'cause you're obviously as far north as anybody you know on this call. Um, you, you just pointed out that yeah, you might only have a few weeks till you are, you, are you talking about this, you're planting right now, October 5th, you're gonna do this fungicide, P g r type of a pass on the wheat on wheat acres, like another three weeks, four weeks, three weeks. Oh yeah. 15 years ago we used to, uh, winterize our sprayers by the end of September and put 'em in the shed and forget about it. Now the sprayers sit in the shed in the shop and they're the last thing that gets put to bed, right? Because you're Honestly, but a standpoint of seasonal, you might be doing this last pass before the winter on wheat, on weeded acres at like Halloween time. Even in South Dakota. Uh, we've done 15th, 20th of November, uh, before depending on weather. And uh, uh, we have, if we get, uh, good early growth on soybean ground, uh, on those acres, we'll do it. And this year our goal is to be proactive and do a lot more acres that way and try to push it even where we're gonna get doing some radical population trials. We're gonna cut it 50%, uh, we're gonna manage it. We're gonna start managing it this fall to try to push those lower pops to get 'em to perform like our higher populations. All right. Real quickly, Lynn, let's talk about money. One of the things I always like is that we're a very open book here at uh, Xa that pass that you're doing when your neighbors think you're crazy 'cause they're talking dormancy and you say dead, dead is not dormant. How much are we spending on that October 31st November 5th pass that you per acre? It's low cost. Uh, like Johnny said, a cheap insecticide. You can do that dirt cheap sub $2, uh, fungicide. There's some, there's a plethora of fungicides that you could use. And like Temple said, uh, reduce your rate because you're not focusing the whole season. You're trying to get it to go into dormancy the best you can. Uh, you're looking for a shorter period of time. You can reduce the rate mega grow. That's very reasonable. Uh, good payback there. It's very low cost. A lot of times those passes when your neighbors drive by and go, what is that guy doing out in the field? That's the one that's usually gonna be making you money. Okay. Uh, I I had, I had to look at my notes here and check on something. The dollars breaker, I know you said very inexpensive. Is the number five or six bucks, is that what I heard? Uh, it would be easily sub sub $10 and ROIs have been very good because you're set stage for yield and for that early season growth for next spring. That's very critical. Got it. Alright. I i I wanna make sure that everybody got, you know, to strategies and tips for successful wheat crop. Uh, the wheat wager we do is cool. You guys always amuse me with your little challenges, et cetera, et cetera. Temple. You're the one that's produced at least a couple of podcasts. One major one with me and Chad and you. What have we not asked you yet about a strategy that you employ or a lesson you've learned in the last few years that's helped you be the wheat wager winner? I would, um, to be honest with you, I got one thing that, uh, has added to my program. And, and again, you know, we, we keep talking about this synergetic thing, right? And we're finding out that there're more and more things that we put in a a mixture. One kind of works off the other one. So, um, the things that I didn't talk about was, um, when, when I do make that pass, you know, that we're talking about here in the fall after that crop comes up, you know, I'm adding a humic fulvic blend like seacat, I'm, I'm adding the sugar in with that to drive a little bit of energy into that plant because I'm trying to get a really big healthy plant, you know, the fulvic and, and the humic in that humic that's in there is a soil amendment. It's gonna help my soil somewhat. And the fulvic that's in that blend is gonna help drive the nutrition that I'm actually putting out there into the plant as well to try to get it in there as fast as possible. And the last thing that I'm gonna tell you is, is the more and more that use a a phosphorous solubilizer like UltraCharge, I've used it in the fall and I started with it last two years ago, putting it in this mix that I'm talking about. And that drove a lot, a lot of yield just by that. And the reason for that is, is anytime that you can drive phosphorus into a plant, it adds to your root mass and it adds to a little bit of that growth and it's gonna add to those tillers. So, um, and then I'm, as we follow that season out, you know, I'm adding a little bit again, you know, and spoonfeeding is a big, big deal for us 'cause we can't use, but you know, I don't, I I hate, hate to keep repeating myself all the time, but we can't use but so much fertilizer. So the better that I can utilize the fertilizer that we are putting out there and make every ounce count and spoonfeed it all the way through its lifecycle and knowing the micronutrients that that plant needs at that specific place in its life and that stage is key to getting these things to work. So all of these things together work really well. S energetic effect, but knowing what goes into that crop and knowing that crop in those stages and what it needs at that time is, I mean, that is like the biggest drive home point. And you know, the other thing is, is everybody's soil's gonna be different. So the micronutrients that I might be using aren't gonna work for Johnny Rell are not gonna work for Lee or not gonna work for Kevin, but it's gonna work for me in my area because it's what I struggle with. So people gotta keep that in mind too. Not all micros work, you gotta figure out what works for you. But the things that we're using that are synergetic with each other, that is u that is working very, very well and it is driving a lot of yield. That's our wheat wager. 2020 threes. Closing remarks. Let's go around the horn then Kevin, uh, gimme your final strategy and tip for successful wheat crop. It can be brief Me brief. Come on now. Well, well wait, I'm going, I'm going. Hey, I'm going in a pecking order. We know temple's the least brief. We know that you're the second least brief. Then we'll get to, we'll get to Lee and by the time I get to Johnny, he'll say, when I say, what's your strategy and tip for successful wheat crawl beer? He'll say something like, do it good and then that'll be it. So anyway, what do you got? Yeah, definitely go use good seed, good seed treatment. Uh, you definitely need to treat that seed in my opinion. And um, you just need a good seed, seed bed, good conditions. And I always like to put it in dry as can be and dust it in and bust the bins is Kind of what one thing we talked about Kevin in the, in the preview to this was seed selection. What do I need to know about seed selection? Well, you need to know what your wheat's going to be used for. Which obviously if you're growing wheat you should know that, but you still need to realize are you growing feed wheat or are you growing milling wheat? If you're in the south where we're at, we're milling wheat. So we're not going after the highest yield. We're going after what is going to pass on the ba toxin test, what our fallen numbers is gonna be. 'cause we need that wheat to bake out into the flour to bake out into a cracker that they can sell. And, um, so it's very, by The way, that's, that's a very, that's a very good point. That's a very good point. What you're growing in North Carolina is gonna be different than somebody in Kansas than is different than somebody in God only knows where. Even North Dakota, because of where your wheat goes, your wheat is going for some mill is milling wheat for crackers. That's right. You go two hours east of us and it's gonna go into a hog. Yeah. So, uh, it's a big deal right where we are, we have flower mill and it's gonna go to crackers and as nabs we call 'em, you ain't never heard of a nap, but, uh, we got naps here in the south. I've heard, I've heard of'em when you were looking for them for breakfast, uh, this, uh, this summer at an event. All right, Lee Luber, what's the final strategy or tip note that you would like to share with everybody either, uh, on live right now or tuning into our recording? Uh, being proactive pays. Uh, it does year in, year out. Hot, dry, wet, cold, doesn't matter. Uh, be proactive. Uh, the things that you're gonna start doing now are setting the stage for the next thing that the plant needs. Like Temple said, plant physiology. Uh, start thinking about what's your plant needing, what is your plant's needing next, and have that in place. It'll just help drive yield. Got it. Johnny, my last man to wrap it up. Yeah, I would say a lot, lot of what they already said, but you know, what we've learned over the last 10 years is whatever corn plant likes, a wheat plant likes it too, for the most part. So anything you're doing to really push your corn plants, push that corn yield, you can really take those same, you know, tactics to do it to your wheat crop. So for us, one of the big things we do, we learn to put zinc on the wheat seed. We get a great response by doing that on our farm. And that's not an extra pass that was actually treated on the seed. So kind of goes in line with corn. We get good responses from zinc on corn. So fungicides, same way, protect that flag leaf, protect that ear leaf on coral, protect the flag leaf on wheat, and it really seemed to pay really well for us. Well like it, because also it kind of plays into what Temple said, well, might work somewhere, you know, who knows? But you've got, you've had a, a huge response from seed treatment of zinc on your seed wheat, so you know who to thunk. I, I don't know. It's something that, uh, that's commonly being discussed out there. Hey, dear listener, if you wanna learn more about this, obviously we're here to put out content that you can use to up your farming game. We've got literally hundreds of episodes of cutting the curve. That's the podcast that I record with the guys and also with other industry experts. And we put 'em out there. They are free cutting the curve, extreme mag, cutting the curve. Hundreds of them idio of the episodes have already been released. Also, there are hundreds of videos that these guys produce in the field while they're in the combine, while they're in the tractor, while they're on their farmstead, even when they're in their office, to help you up your farming game. If you want to learn more about wheat, just go to the extreme ag.farm website. There's a search, uh, engine. Go on there and type in wheat. You will get well, we've already shown and shared here about half a dozen video, uh, links over here on the right hand side from making adjustments to micronutrients to, uh, temple Roads, uh, and Chad's methodology on, uh, record setting wheat is all there. So please go to it. We meet again for the monthly extreme Ag webinar on Thursday, November 2nd, Thursday, November 2nd is our next meeting. We will have the guys here talking about fall focus for spring success, fall focus, you know, it's gonna be November 2nd. Maybe you're gonna be done harvesting by then. Maybe you're still planting, uh, wheat by then, whatever the point is. You have so much time on your hands, uh, between now and when the ground freezes or when you go into dormancy. What can you do now? What can you focus on to fall for spring success? You know, the, the clock doesn't stop. You're on the game. You want to keep the thing going. What does Lee talk about all the time? Rounding the basis. So don't forget to be here. Uh, and also we'd like to ask you to become a member. Remember, for a short seven $50 per year, you get direct access to the extreme Ag guys. You get a certain number of calls you can have with them because maybe you're saying, Johnny just talked about putting Zco in wheat. I've heard about that. I need to get more information. If you're a member for just seven 50 bucks a year, you can call him directly and get the information you need. That's the big benefit of being extreme ag member. So next time, thanks for being here. We wanna see you again on November 2nd. Check out all the great stuff at the Extreme Ag Farm website. A huge thank you to Lee for hopping in. We haven't seen him as much of him lately. We love it when he is here. Johnny Rell, and then of course Kevin and Temple who wrapped up or maybe didn't wrap up in Temple's case, but got to the edge of the field so they could join us because we know it's a hectic time of the year for fall harvest and for, uh, for wheat, uh, planting. So anyway, thanks especially to everyone, especially to the temple and Kevin for making themselves available. To next time, I'm Damien Mason. Thanks for being here at the October webinar from Extreme Ag.