Success StoryMonitoring Spring Conditions that Contribute to Wheat Freeze Damage
Monitoring Spring Conditions that Contribute to Wheat Freeze Damage
Author: Carrie Knott
Planning Unit: Plant and Soil Sciences
Major Program: Grains
Outcome: Initial Outcome
As climate variability becomes more extreme, spring growing conditions in winter wheat have also become more extreme. These extreme conditions are more routinely resulting in spring temperatures that can result in damage to the wheat crop. To provide immediate information to wheat producers, preliminary work has been initiated to monitor soil surface temperatures in wheat fields-including several farmer fields across the state. From two years of data, we have been able to communicate to producers that the temperature at the soil surface, where the wheat growing point resides, has not fallen to or below temperatures that could cause freeze damage or death to the wheat plant's growing point despite air temperatures that should have resulted in damage to the wheat crop. This information is essential to producers that are making management decisions about whether additional inputs should be added to the wheat crop or if the wheat crop should be terminated. This information has been helpful the past two years for all ~400,000 acres that wheat is produced in KY annually. It has been shared in blog posts, newsletter articles and on social media.
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