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Rolla, ND | So many possibilities.
Could be a planting date that is too early or too late. A very real potential problem in your area is virus diseases. Here I try to get guys to plant their corn by their winter wheat and never plant winter wheat next to corn. That's because the corn is host to the vectors and diseases that can be real serious on wheat, like barley yellow dwarf and wheat streak mosaic. Planting too early, when the aphids are flying around looking for green hosts is a real sure way to have poor winter wheat due to barley yellow dwarf here. Wheat streak is less sure.
Fertility is important. Phosphorus is important for winter hardiness, we don't usually see much yield difference here if the winter wheat makes it through the winter, but this year, we saw a huge difference where the farmer ran out of phosphorus near the end of the field.
Timely nitrogen can make a big difference. The most common problem here is spreading too late. People don't seem to like to spread in the fall. Excess nitrogen in fall can hurt winter hardiness, and if it doesn't make it they probably don't need that much on their spring crop. Yet I often see big yield losses from the winter wheat growing seriously short of nitrogen in the spring until it dries enough to get into the field. For that reason, I like to see the winter wheat go into freeze up with a major portion of the nitrogen on the field, say 80 to 100 lbs.
There can also be a sulfer problem on winter wheat, not just nitrogen and phosphorus, but if you were having big problems, I would think you would see that. We are seeing it where we grow winter wheat behind canola. The canola uses the sulfer and we get patches of sulfer deficiency in the spring at least for a time.
Flooding was mentioned. Winter wheat takes a lot of water if the ground is frozen or just thawed, flooding when the soil is over say 50 degrees for more than a short time can do big damage.
Our winter wheat generally isn't bothered too much by spring germinating weeds, fall weeds seem a lot more important. Is your winter wheat getting established without a lot of competition, or is it a blanket of plants out there in the fall? Adding a fall treatment might make a lot of difference in your environment. I doubt if Harmony did serious damage to your winter wheat.
I would start with diseases or that you are starving your wheat somewhere in it's early growth. There is such a thing as excessive early growth, but many yield components are decided very early.
It could also be something like scab taking and destroying many whole heads. The reaction would depend on the variety. If there are varieties with better scab tolerance or resistance try those.
What's the crop ahead of your wheat? What would you use as herbicides on that crop?
Marv
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Wheat ,what am I doing wrong?
