2018 Cover Crop Update

SUMMARY OF 2018 COVER CROP EXPERIENCE: (the details are below this summary)  -- The property history is:  farmed conventionally from ~1900 through 1986.  CRP  from 1986 through 2013.  2014 field seeded to spring barley.  2015 seeded to 5 & 9 cultivar cover crop.  2016 seeded to winter wheat.  2017 seeded to spring canola.  2018 seeded to 5 cultivar cover crop.
     The cover crop (~75ac) was the first seeded for the year, with (~ 10ac) seeded last, after the cash crops.  All the cover crop cultivars had a high emergence rate with a good to excellent stand on poor as well as good soil.  The amount of biomass grown represented the type of ground under it.  10#N placed with the seed would have paid big dividends in the poor soil areas.  We did an early takeout this year instead of letting it go to maturity.  The hope was that we could maximize the N retention and minimize water loss.  We took soil tests from our normal fallow area as well as on the cover crop area.  As usual they are a source of frustration.  Inconsistent, What? that's not right! how can that be?!  The only consistent element is the use of 3" moisture to grow the CC.  I'm disappointed in this because our early takeout should have resulted in less moisture use by the CC.  Well, it's just one piece of data in a short list of try's.  I can see that I should be taking these tests myself.  Even though I have a competent person pulling these tests, I can't be sure they are taken consistently in the same place time after time, and without that knowledge it's difficult for me to analyze the results.  (Most of this summary was posted to the Cover Crop Page.)
                                            --------------------------------------
    4/15/18?? --Seeded ~75ac field with 5 cultivar cover crop.  Two cultivars of large seed (forage pea, forage oats), and 3 cultivars of small seed (white dutch clover, daikon radish, pardenni lentil).
    5/12/18?? --Seeded ~ 5ac with remaining 5 cultivar cover crop all mixed together.  Earlier seeding was separated by size with large seed on 20" row's and small seeds between the large seed rows.  We had great emergence of the early seeded cultivars, including the Dutch White Clover.
    7/7/18 --We started the takeout process for the 5 cultivar (forage oat, forage pea, daikon radish, small lentil, white dutch clover) cover crop.  The intent this year was to takeout at the height of N production (early pod setting).  We were a little late (~1-1.5wks).  Currently the peas and lentils and radish have finished bloom and well into pod/seed development.  The clover has some blooms.  The forage oats has headed and have some seed in the milk.  East of the ditch, the planting is ~3wks later and takeout is probably 1-1.5wks too early.  We should have added some N (~10#).  I think it would have resulted in significant more biomass.  As it is, we have some areas with good height and color, and others are shorter, and yellowish in color.  Many of the areas without complete canopy have Russian Thistle and Skeleton Weed competing with the covers.
        The late seeded cover mix, which was all mixed together and seeded out at the same depth as the canola at Thornton showed difference in emergence between cultivars.  The radish was the only indicator that the small seed mix was fairly well distributed throughout the large seed mix.  The White Dutch Clover did not emerge well.  The other four cultivars emerged well.  Radish, because of it's early bolt and flowering, is a good indicator of field distribution of the seed mix.  What we have learned at this point from three years experience is that radish will likely emerge if held to around 1.5" depth.
        We have an interest in four types of takeout processes.  We hope to find one that will leave our White Dutch Clover and take out the remainder.
        Because of logistics issues we were not able to try a crimper.  We would like to have tried that method although we are skeptical that it would work with our cultivars or terrain.
        We sprayed ~20ac (one swath west of the ditch, and all the cover on the east side of the ditch) with a mix of 2-4D and Rt3 left over from the bordering chem fall field.
        We used the 26' Shulte mower on ~20ac, --mostly on the upper west side with wide headlands on the north and south borders.  At a distance the mowed area looks pretty good; however, close inspection shows cultivars missed.  We'll see if the forage oats become a contaminate in next years fall wheat.
        On the 9th we sprayed one quart per acre of paraquat and 2qt/100g of Outrigger with 20gpa total solution on the remaining field and over some of the mowed ground.

     8/14/18-- The cover crop takeout methods were evaluated.  The Roundup and Gromoxone applications look pretty good; however, the mowed area has recovered with the skeleton weed showing a lot of bloom.  We applied Gromoxone to the mowed ground to stop the Skeleton weed bloom.
     9/20/18--Some recovery of Rush Skeleton Weed, and it was flowering and some matured.  It appears that the Gromoxone is the best takeout method.  It burned everything down fast and the Rush Skeleton Weed was very slow to recover.  The Glyphosate was too slow in burn down allowing the target plants to continue competing for 4-6 days longer than the Gromoxone.
     We did not make a Glyphosate application prior to seeding our winter wheat.   There were few Russian thistles present and no grass weeds observed.  There was a significant amount of Rush Skeleton weed present.  I'm not sure whether we are making any headway in controlling that pest(Rush Skeleton weed).  It's not suppose to compete well with a growing crop; however, this piece of ground with shallow soil and heavy population, may be an exception.
      11/21/18  --Evaluated winter wheat seeded into the cover crop ground.  The wheat was seeded during the 3rd wk of September into dry conditions.  We received sufficient moisture the 4th wk of October to germinate the winter wheat, but by then the weather was quite cool with freezing nights and near freezing days.  The winter wheat has mostly emerged (~95%) but very small, ranging from spike to a few two leaves.                                                                    

2017 HARVEST UPDATE

The 2017 crop year was a record breaker.  Never in my lifetime have we received 20.4" of rain/snow in a crop year at our SJ/Ewan operation.  Also, we have had near record or record breaking temperatures for the 2017 crop year.  That sounds like it should be a banner year with plenty of moisture and heat.  Well, not for us.  Timing of the rain and heat trumped everything.  The harvest of 2017 was mostly disappointing.
WINTER WHEAT:   (Brundage 96)  All of our winter wheat was seeded on pea ground (no ww on fallow ground).  The ground was dry, which meant we didn't consider seeding until after Oct. 1st, --a bad decision this year.  October was extremely wet all month.  Lesson learned?! --Seed in September regardless of dryness, and seed it deep (1.5-2") so it takes a significant rain to start it.  Had we done that, the Thornton winter wheat crop would have probably been 100-110% of average, and the less forgiving SJ/Ewan area winter wheat crop would have been in the range of 90-100% of average.  As it was, Thornton was ~90% of average, and SJ/Ewan was ~50% of average.
SPRING WHEAT (DNS):  (Glee)  The season started out with great soil moisture, and timely seeding, that developed into a very nice looking stand of spring wheat.  The unusual heat wave (~ three weeks ± 100 degrees) damaged the bloom and seed development.  Our quality was remarkably good, --the meshes were just blanked out.  Test weight was good and shriveled kernels were few, and protein was just under 14%.  Our yield was ~ 90% of average.

[Update 6/28/18] --Meetings held during the winter and spring on Canola have emphasized the importance of proper timing for chemical applications.  There will be a yield loss to the crop if chemical is applied after bolting commences.  We didn't get to the in-crop application until bolting started showing, along with some flowering, --this is probably why we were ~200#/a below a neighbors yield although we had a better stand and population.  The neighbors field was a couple of hundred feet higher, and that may have been a factor as well in terms of heat effect.
SPRING CANOLA:  (hyCLASS 930 rr) The crop was timely seeded.  The plant population was good.  The crop was growing well, but the heat hit in early bloom (for 2016 trials, we had nearly a month of bloom).  The high heat over the extended time did not let a re-bloom establish pods.  In fact the spring canola continued to bloom through the beginning of 2018, although no pods set.  The yield was ~ 30-40% of what we expected.  Any other field would have probably done better this particular year.  This field was our poorest soil, lowest elevation and all faced S and SW.  It took the brunt of the heat.  We are not deterred.  We think that spring canola is going to be a great alternative to winter wheat.  Also, it appears that we will be able to cut spring canola with the stripper header which is a big plus.  This field went into winter in great shape, --good residue, standing tall with most of the plants still living.   The tall canola stubble, although not thick like wheat stubble, is great for reducing wind velocity near the soil surface, and snow catch.  Winter of 2017-2018 was not a big snow year like 2016 but we haven't seen any drifting in that field compared to mowed or tilled fields.
      I haven't sorted out the data for any comparison between CF/winter wheat and CC/winter wheat, or our canola on ground that has had a cover crop and ground that has never had a cover crop.  I may include that as an update to this post or it may take a post of it's own.

2017 CROP YEAR --- RAINFALL

     The total rainfall shows this to be a great year.  The crop does have potential but there are caveats.  We had a long period where the ground was frozen, and a lot of moisture ran off the fields.  We had a later than normal start for spring planting which has put those crops behind.  This spring we had our usual random low temperature nights.  The extent of the damage, if any, is not known.  We have had two short periods (3-4 days) of high temperatures (98-100+).  These have shortened our canola bloom.  What other damage the heat may have caused is unknown to me.
St. John / Ewan,  Rainfall (including a lot of snow) record on our farm for 2017 Crop Year.
       August 2016 ---> 0.16", September 2016 ---> 0.45",  October ---> 4.86",  November ---> 1.92",  December--->1.02",  January 2017 ---> 1.40",  February ---> 3.91",  March --> 3.81",  April ---> 1.58", May ---> 0.84",  June ---> 0.72",  July 2017 ---> 0.00,
       [ Crop year 2017 (Aug/July) = 20.67"]
   
     At Thornton, the business that was keeping a loose record of the rainfall quit December 2016.
 [update June 2018]    For the calendar year 2017:  August = 0.00, September = 0.69", October = 1.98", November = 2.96", December = 3.16".
                     [ Calendar year total 2017 ---> 21.05"]

2016 Harvest Update

   This year has been the most confusing of my 60+ years of farming.  The weather looked like it was going to treat us pretty good, but, mostly after the fact, we found it wasn't as good as it first appeared.  I thought we missed the frost in April, but as it turned out, not quite.  The moisture was coming along just fine, then it shut off.  The years moisture was just short of our long term average.  The heat wave in May, although not real hot, apparently did damage depending on where the crop was in it's development.  The temperature for this growing and harvest season was quite comfortable.  A relatively mild winter, and no 100+ days. Very different from 2015's long stretch of 100+ temperatures.  All in all everything was looking pretty good.  Looking back on Art Douglas' prediction, I think he was right on for my immediate area.  There apparently was a big swing of temperature in the April-May period that set us up for falling number issues depending on area, and wheat cultivar.  I knew when it happened but didn't think anything about it, --not severe, not unusual.  Everything I hear is antidotal; however, I'm of the opinion that the test is badly flawed.  Inconsistency in the ability to replicate the numbers, even in a relatively narrow range, is wide spread.  It appears to me that the milling industry has found a way to purchase high quality grain, --cheap, and at our expense.  Hopefully, this will be addressed before another harvest.  I have been hearing of some fantastic yields, but some are pretty mediocre,  and some fields have very low FN's, but not all of them.  With the quality issues and plummeting prices, this will be a year we hope to never repeat.
     Now, for our farm.  ---Wheat yields were good, but not exceptional, --with exception.  The FN's varied across the fields ranging from 279-330.  Wheat yields ranged from 83 to a little over 100.  This yield range is close to norm for us at this stage,--slow but steady gain over time.  We have a variety of soils ranging from very complex shallow ground to deep Athena soils.  Our cover crop ground was the 83 and we consider that fantastic.  This is the worst ground we have with complex soils and large areas that have a couple of inches of soil over fractured rock, and infested with Rush Skeleton weed.  This area was seeded to a multiple cultivar (brassica/legume) cover crop last year and used 3" water compared to our CF.  This spring there was less than an inch (0.8") difference in moisture.  There were variations in yield over the CC area but none of the shallow spots showed significant drop as was expected.  Was this unexpected yield do to the cover crop?  Too early to tell!  One year doesn't make a trend, but since it wasn't a flop, it's encouragement to expand the practice.  Our experience is paralleling the experience of other farmers in the area, --covers used 3" moisture, yields didn't collapse.  This also matches the literature on the subject.  The remainder of our Brundage 96 looked exceptional through harvest, but didn't end up yielding exceptional.  The Puma went over a hundred.
--- The mustard was a disappointment.  Yields ranged from ≈680 to 870#/a.  The stand emerged well with an OK population.  Quality was good.  It was harvested with the stripper head.  The field Rep. indicated that they were finding similar results region wide, and no real explanation as to why.  In our case, my thoughts are: --we should seed 8-10#/ac instead of the 5-6, and that we seeded to shallow.  we had emergence over too long of time span.  I'm guessing that another factor was that the little heat wave in May hit the mustard at the wrong time in it's development.  I didn't see frost damage during emergence.
--- The winter peas were problematic from the start.  They yielded 1262#/a.  One field was destroyed because of contamination with Billy Beans.   They were all dormant seeded in November.  They came up this spring looking great and high population.  With no experience in dormant seeding we didn't put on the pre-emergence chemistry.  Bad mistake!  Spring applications of grass and broadleaf herbicides were a total failure.  Dormant seeding of winter peas has great potential, but make sure to get the pre-emerge chemistry applied.  We ended up with an even over-story of Jim Hill Mustard, that proved to be challenging to harvest.  An IH8230 with MacDon header had no easier time than our N7 and standard head.  A very slow grind.  The crop grade showed high percent of hard seed which was subtracted from the germ making it un-usable as seed stock.  Our supplier had only one field that returned seed quality winter peas, and they were seeded in the spring, --so missed the environmental condition that caused the hard seed.  We will likely see Austrian peas show up for several years because of this hard seed issue.  Fortunately they are not difficult to remove.
----The spring peas were fantastic at Thornton.  Thornton was DRY.  They were ≈6" below normal, but the yields were very good.  Most communities north and south of Thornton had fairly normal precipitation.  Except for the rainfall, the other environmental conditions favored a good crop in 2016.  Our "Ginny" peas ranged from 2400-2980#/a, depending on the field.  The normally high yielding low ground tallied as much as 6500#/a.  They stood way too long for a green pea; however, the bleach, was insignificant, and seed coat damage was reasonable.  Normally green peas will have significant bleach if they stand beyond maturity.  Ginny is a great cultivar.  We harvested them with a standard head w/o pea lifters.  A slow harvest and in areas some peas were left on the vine (too deep in the track).  Our old wheat residue was left intact and we had a lot of pea residue left in the field.  We expected we would process all the residue, leaving exposed ground, which is normal with pea harvest, --but didn't.
--- Our DNS (Glee)@ 42b/a was ok.  Heavy weight, but only 13+% protein.  Stand was good but maybe it needed to be thicker.  Consider increasing seed rate, --we had 2-3 tillers and don't want more than two.  Probably needed more N to get protein.
--- Our SB (Lenatah) @3030#/a was ok.  Heavy weight and quality was excellent.  Stand was good, but may consider increased seeding rate.
--- We had a Viterra test plot of 6 new spring canola cultivars for the area.  Most were a GMO of one type or another.  They all had excellent yields ranging between 1700-2700#/a.  The plot was in the flat in front of our house.  The trial was not limited in moisture, and had a high pH (8+) in much of it.  We seeded the plots after the mustard and before moving to Thornton.  The seeding rate was ≈4#/a.  The stand developed over about 3 weeks,--it didn't seem to effect the outcome.  The canola probably stood too long; however, there was very low shatter on all the cultivars.  The quality of the stand didn't allow much movement within the crop canopy.

Cover Crop Summary -- 2015

Review the Aug. 5/15 post, titled "Cover Crop"for details of the seeded cover crop.
     What did we learn.  First, with only one year experience nothing can be said with any certainty.
     ---Our attempt to include a legume for N was, in my mind, a failure.  Neither the peas, vetch, or clover grew to the extent that N would be increased for the following crop.  The peas were small, podded quickly, developed seed before any of the other cover crop cultivars were ready to make their contribution, thus using all the N they produced.  The vetch and clover are slow growing and didn't develop any significant biomass, and this would limit their production of N.
     ---The brassica's (mustard, radishes, cabbage did well.  Two varieties, Annaconda and Nemaflex, bolted quickly and seeded out.  They did develop good tubers.  The third variety, Graza, stayed green all season without bolting and developed good tubers.  The Graza grew close to the ground, where the other two grew more vertical.  The mustard did OK, but didn't make any big statement for cover.  The cabbage grew good leaf cover.
     ---The grains (winter triticale, millet) were a waste, and may be a problem.  The millet cooked out quick, and only in the dips did it have enough moisture to make a head.  The winter triticale may become a problem in the fall wheat that was seeded.  We didn't see any cultivars growing, so, did it not germinate?  We'll see next June.
     ---The cover crop took 3" of our profile moisture.  What will that mean for 2016 winter wheat?  Skeptics are sure they know!  I'm not so sure.  Will the boring of the brassica's allow for better water infiltration with frozen ground this winter?  Those tubers, once they die, shrink rather quickly, leaving a big hole that will probably extend below the frost line.  My hope is that we will lose no water from runoff as we did in Feb. of 2014.  We have seeded the winter wheat, but it won't grow until we get more moisture this fall or winter.  We are getting some of our chem fallow emerged next to the cover crop, but I think we will still be able to make a reasonable guess of the yield hit between the two areas next July.  I can see these hole drillers need to be used timely, and with purpose, because of their ability to move water both directions in the soil profile.
     ---The experience showed that cover crop cultivars need to be tailored for the following cash crop, and timing of seeding tailored to give the desired results (this is as advertised).  Two examples:  One, -don't seed small grain cultivars in a cover mix in front of a cash grain crop.  With small grains being our bread and butter, we don't need this cultivar for crop diversity, and it is not needed to scavenge N or P for water quality as they do in the midwest or east.  Second, -vetches need to be seeded in late summer or early fall to establish themselves for early spring growth, to give desired results.  How do we make this work??  This is the fourth time I have attempted growing N, and the results are not impressive.  We'll try again next year.  I am a long way from exhausting the potential methods.
     ---We are thinking of resurrecting our 1980 Crustbuster Soybean Drill with it's leading edge double disc openers to inter-seed covers with the cash crop, and possibly seed our cover crop areas.  It's light, can be pulled fast, and will place seed shallow.  It will however degrade our residue mat.  My thought is too seed a light rate of (either/and/or) vetch, clover, Graza radish to grow with our spring small grain cash crops.  The vetch, and clover are slow developing, making them non competitive with the cash crop.  The Graza will potentially compete for sunlight so needs to be sparse.  My hope would be that it grows fast enough to grow a long slender tuber before we hit it with our broadleaf chemical application in the cash crop.  I think the clover will survive.  I'm not sure about the vetch.  If some of these cultivars do survive, it will leave a live root system in the ground to feed the biological herd and help soil quality after the cash crop matures.  We aren't going to bet the farm on this, so it will only be a few acres in these trials.

DIRECT SEEDING WITH THE CROSS SLOT -- FALL 2015

The drill worked well.  The ADF was flawless, and new blades kept the seed depth more uniform.  The scrapers would probably hold seed in the slot even better if we could figure out how to keep them from plugging with heavy surface residue.  It will be better yet when we get the tool bar leveling system mounted and debugged.  Currently the rear toolbar openers tend to shallow up when going over a ridge.
     However, for the second year we failed to get the field drilled timely to get 100% emergence.
     2015 has been unusually hot with weeks instead of days in the high 90's and low 100's.  There was no measurable rain from late May until September 5th when we received a half inch.  The moisture met in our chem fallow ground.  Because drill parts were unavailable we didn't get started drilling until the 18th, and the seed zone moisture left.  I was very surprised.  With all the residue cover we have on the field I never thought we would lose seed zone moisture that fast.  The above average  temperatures this fall had to be the reason.
     Again, the lesson here with chem fallow is, --don't miss the seed zone moisture for fall seeded wheat.  We likely will take a 15-20 bushel yield hit for missing that window.
     See the post of 5/3/14: "New CrossSlot Drill", for a problem discovered and the resulting fix.

2015 Harvest with Stripper Header -- Chickpeas

We left a lot of chickpea pods on the ground.  Was this unique to the stripper header or was it the year? To get a comparison I visited two operations, one using a new MacDon 40' draper header with all the bells and whistles, and the other using an older 24' International auger header equipped with a pea bar.  Both of those operations were complaining about the amount of chickpea pods that were left on the ground.  To me, it appeared that those operations had similar losses, and they were less than our losses.
      Things that were apparent:
-- After observing the two other operations that were in a higher rainfall, if we had not had the 28 degree night June 12th, I think we could have had a pretty decent crop.  The frost devastated the low ground.
-- The 40' draper did an amazing job of getting close to the ground without picking up dirt.  That big header was light on its feet, and the flex in the middle allowed it to follow the ground contours quite well.  The ground was smooth and soft.  The terrain was fairly consistent with few sharp slope transitions.  The vines were tangled and some branching was on the ground.
-- The older 24' pea bar equipped auger header was on harder soil surface and still had difficulty with pushing dirt. It had no auto header control features.  There were a lot of low pods on the vines.  Many vines were not standing erect.
-- Our ground had more sharp slope transitions than the other two operations which makes for more challenge.  Our ground also has a rougher surface.  It has been 20+ years since we have leveled the surface with cultivation or even a harrow.  Our stand population was a little less and the vines appeared to stand a little better than the other two operations, but there were many low hanging pods.
-- A 32 foot ridged stripper header is too long for this short statured crop in our hilly terrain.
-- Since pod drop was the main loss observed in all three operations, and all operations had some bare seed on the ground, I don't think the stripper head shelled and spit out seed any worse than the other two header types.
-- I don't think the stripper header processing is any harder on the chickpea seed than the other header types.
-- We were able to leave a lot of chickpea residue standing following harvest, and very little old residue was reprocessed.  The other operations clipped the crop at ground level and processed all the residue, leaving a fast degradable, low carbon surface cover.
-- Our heavy residue may be a problem with other header types.  A least, much more would be reprocessed.  This in turn will degrade our surface cover.
-- I think a 20' Shelbourne stripper header will work just fine for this crop in our terrain, --and even better if you include the auto header control features.

     The weeds we encountered were nearly all Russian Thistle.  They are a problem when large and green; however, if they are dried down, they were not any real issue.  They do slow up your ground speed.

2015 Harvest with Stripper Header -- Dry Peas

     We have finished harvesting our spring planted standup peas.  The weather decimated the crop.  We started out with a great plant population, but growth and seed development was stopped by frost and heat.   Our yield was ≈200#/ac of poor quality (small and dimpled) peas.
      The stripper header did fine.  We missed a few low pods, and there was a little pod shatter where the 32' solid head didn't fit the terrain.
      I think the split and skinned seed is manageable with the stripper head; however, a decent yielding crop is needed to evaluate this aspect of the harvest.  We had more splits than I would normally want, but, was it from the pea condition or from rattling around a near empty combine impacting with metal parts.  With two spinning rotors and so little cushioning material going into the combine, this may be challenging.
      Such a short crop needed an auto trim for the speed we traveled.  Kye doesn't think auto height control would have helped but feels we need to reduce the force of ground impacts.  The pea harvest is much dirtier than the small grain harvest.  Pods, leaves, and vines shatter into fine dust that envelops the machine.  We chemically dried the crop so very little green material entered the machine (weeds or crop).
      There is a lot of pea stubble left standing, making it look more like a grain field than a pea field.

Watch the crop, particularly the branchy china lettuce plant before and after the combine passes over the peas. (Sorry, the full screen web version of this video is poor.)

This area shows good growth of pea vine (a little over my knee), but few pods.  A close look will show that there is standing winter wheat stubble that is helping support the pea vine.  Where we have standing stubble the peas stand a little taller.  Wheel tracks don't have much effect on the stubble support, but flattened areas such as truck loading spots and some corners with multiple turns are too wide, and vines sag.  Supported vines appear to hold the bottom pods higher off the ground which is good for the stripper header.

2015 HARVEST WITH STRIPPER HEADER

[Update 8/2/15]-- Normally we don't have weed issues in our crops, but this year is an exception.  Yesterday, we were part of a 16 combine crew that harvested a friends crop.  The friend wanted to experience a stripper headed crop so we were assigned to cut the Louise spring wheat.  The heat this year beat up his spring grains and left room for russian thistles to grow.  The heat pinched the tips and the grain bin looked cobby, and where we had a lot of russian thistles, we added green material to the bin.  Not a sample to be proud of.  My son was asked whether the stripper head was better or worse than a standard head in cutting a crop infestation with thistle.  His answer: -- we process much less of the thistle, leaving more in the field; however, what we do process, is the tender top branches, and a high percentage of this material ends up in the grain tank.  Eight rows of fingers traveling between 400 and 800rpm, provide a lot of hits.  The material tends to be too small to sieve off, and too heavy to blow out.  This also is the tendency with immature grain.  Only a fraction of immature heads are stripped; however, most of what is stripped ends up in the grain bin.  Our pea and garbs have turned up weedy because of the June 12th frost and high temperatures.  We will use chemistry to dry down the crop and weeds prior to harvesting with either the stripper head, or conventional head.  With the material dry, none will end up in the bin.  An advantage with using a stripper head in lightly infested fields is that most of the green plant will be left intact.  The weeds will take in an application of herbicide soon following harvest.
       July 18th was our startup of the 2015 harvest of winter wheat.  I don't remember ever harvesting this early.  Several operations around us started the 10th.  Our normal startup is around August 1st.

 The hot, dry weather in June and July has left the straw more brittle than usual.  The stripper head is lodging a significant amount of stems as shown in the pic above.   The pulling action of the rotor as it strips the head is bending and breaking some of the straw at a weak node near the base of the plant..  We haven't seen this before.  Without the heads interacting and helping to hold the stand together, I think a good wind will knock down a lot of what is left standing.  This stand will certainly collapse with snow, --if we get any this coming winter.

POST HARVEST REVIEW OF 2014

     SUMMARY:  This year started out as a great opportunity to see if heavy surface residue and standing stubble would hold moisture for crop development that normally would evaporate into the atmosphere.  Recognizing that spring crops would be insurance claims from the get-go, being late in their seeding was not a big concern.  As it turns out I can't make any real judgement about what heavy tall residue may have contributed to the crop.  (In short, a wasted year)   The abundant June rain skewed everything.  As we came out of winter I expected nothing for a spring crop, and got something.  Others, in some cases, did better.  If June had been like January through April I think the timely seeded spring crops would have been toast and we would still be where we are.  Having seeded close to the middle of May, we still had abundant stored moisture by mid June.  The June rain allowed our barley to stay in the vegetative stage longer, developing more tillers.  The main stem of our barley was hurt but did fairly well.  The first tiller contributed a little to yield.  The remaining tillers, for the most part, just used nutrients and moisture and slowed harvest with no contribution to yield.  The spring wheat is less determinable.  There were fewer tillers.  The main stem showed some damage as well as the first tiller.  The second through fourth tillers, in places, contributed to yield.   It's interesting to speculate what this SWSW crop would have yielded had it been seeded timely.
         Our winter wheat was very near WSU's trial average for the rainfall area.  48 sites.  From what I hear our SWWW was a little better than most of the fields around me.
         Our spring wheat was right at WSU's trial average for the rainfall area, even though it was planted a month later.  42 sites.  We appeared to be a little lower than neighboring fields near me.
         Our spring barley (no WSU data available now) was, I'm sure, low by any standard.  There was no barley raised near our field for comparison.
                                         CONCLUSIONS
         --- Delete this year from mental calculations for future crop planning.  I read this from several sources, and agree.
         --- High rainfall areas and associated soils are much more forgiving than the low rainfall areas to less optimal conditions including seeding date.
         --- Don't expect moisture, whether stored, or saved through the growing season, to recover potential yield loss from late seeding.  Plants can't draw moisture fast enough, regardless of availability, in high heat environment.  (an affirmation of past research and experience.)
        --- It appears that even in drought years, spring small grain crops will do better with high seed rates.  This deters tillering.  Each tiller takes about a week to develop, so every tiller potentially delays maturity a week.
        --- I think that if we would have had stubble left standing following last falls seeding of winter wheat, that would have given enough protection for the crop to have endured the December blast with less damage.

     BACKGROUND:
       --- The September 1, 2013 to August 31st, 2014 moisture was a total of just over 8" (that included the December/January snowfall that mostly went down the creek (check label titled moisture for details), and the nearly 2" received in mid May and the month of June.  That is a long ways off our 15-17" historical average.
       ---The fall of 2013 was dry, causing spotty emergence of the fall wheat in the area-- including ours.  We expected 100% and didn't get it.
       --- Mid December we experienced high winds from the northeast with temperatures dipping to single digits for several days, and no snow cover.
       --- There was very little moisture received over the winter and spring of 2014.
       --- In mid February we experienced a quick warmup on frozen ground with a thin (1-3") snow cover.   Within 2 hours, the snow cover was mostly gone, and nearly all the water left the fields causing creek rise and minor flooding in areas.
       --- Mid May provided ≈ 0.5" rain, and June provided us with 1.54" of moisture.  Most of it in three days mid month.
      --- Third week of June started very warm and quickly got hot that lasted well into August without any real break.  Wind accompanied the heat for many of those days.
      DETAIL:
       --- Winter Wheat: (15-17"rainfall area) Averaged 77 bu/ac. (Brundage 96)  Most of the field was a long north facing slope.  These slopes had fair residue, but very little was standing.  This condition limited protection for the December event and the growing crop showed significant burn.  Spring recovery and development was slow. We had an anomaly in one corner of the field.  It apparently received some protection, from the cold blast of wind, behind a north facing high ridge.  This  rectangular area (≈70ac) had a flat area broken up with three low hills.  This area averaged over 100 bu/ac and ranged as high as 140 bu/ac.
       --- Spring Barley: (15-17" rainfall area) Average 3/4 tn/ac.  Two fields.  Both with southern exposures.  Seeded at 100#/ac Lenetah a month later than optimal.
                CRP field had excellent stored moisture.  The field was clipped in 2013, so little standing residue, and some dirt showing.
                The barley on barley field had good moisture.  The previous yield was 1.5 tn/ac.  It had a lot of residue on the ground and the stubble (high density) was standing.  It yielded a 100#/ac more than the CRP.
                 We also had a separate small flat 12 ac CF field that was seeded to barley.  This area had a fantastic stand, seeded at 122#/ac.  It's yield was 1.25 tn/ac.
         ---Spring Wheat: (18-20"rainfall area)  These were seeded a month later than optimal at 100#/ac of Diva.
                Field-1 was embarrassing to watch the whole growing season but ended up yielding the best (50b/a).  Mustard was raised last year.  Poor residue cover, and little standing.  Field had balanced aspects of high/low, north south east west slopes.  Eroded areas got hard, so stand started out spotty.
                Field-2 was primarily a long south slope with a big flat.  Average yield of 46 bu/ac.  Tremendous surface residue on much of the flat with dense standing barley stubble.  There was some fallow ground where we did ditch work last year.  The high ground also had good surface residue and dense standing standing stubble. Areas of the flat went over 100 bu/ac, but dropped quickly with elevation.  The emergence looked good all over.
                 Field-2 was fairly well balanced with high/low, north south east west aspects.  Always considered this field the poorest of the three.  It yielded 43 bu/ac.  Good residue on the surface except on eroded ridges.  Good standing barley residue except on the eroded ridges.  The emergence looked good.