The sudden sharp drop in temperatures across Kansas this week will cause the wheat crop to go into dormancy. Whether it will injure the wheat to any degree depends on several factors.

The most important tests and nutrients to focus on this year depends in part on where you are located, the choices you make when applying N, and your tillage system.

On the western side of Oklahoma, early cotton acre establishment is in question, and winter wheat outcome looks devastating, according to Gary Strickland, Jackson County director and southwest regional agronomist for Oklahoma State University Extension.

In many areas of Kansas, prolonged drought has resulted in short wheat and thin stands. Harvesting wheat in these situations can be a challenge. Special attention needs to be given to cutting height, machine adjustments, and operator control.

>Both daytime high and nighttime low temperatures have been extremely high across parts of Kansas during the four-day period May 9-12 (Figure 1). Extreme heat in early- to mid-May occasionally happens, but usually just for a single day. To have four consecutive days of days with highs in the low- to mid-90s °F at a time when much of the state’s wheat crop is either in the heading or flowering stage is concerning.

Guillermo Breton's family had a front row seat to Dr. Norman Borlaug's groundbreaking research on wheat in the 1950's. The fifth-generation no-tiller describes how their work continues today in central Mexico, and is helping farmers better prepare for challenges ahead. The No-Till Passport series is brought to you by Martin Industries. 

The recent cold temperatures experienced during 31 March – 14 April 2022 were enough to cause freeze damage to winter wheat in parts of Kansas. The actual freeze damage will be region-specific depending on crop growth stage and minimum temperatures (some regions had a worst combination of temperatures and crop growth stage) and, within a region, field specific owing to many individual aspects such as crop density, residue level, etc. While there is nothing that we can do immediately, growers can prioritize fields where they sample for freeze damage symptoms depending on conditions that were more likely to result in freeze damage.

Legumes still can provide valuable N to today’s cropping systems. Legumes also contribute a non-nitrogen rotation effect due to addition of soil organic matter and improvement in soil health. Corn grown following alfalfa stands that are 2+ years old (and contained at least 50% alfalfa) require no nitrogen fertilizer on many soils. Red clover N credits are less than for alfalfa.