hard red winter wheat

Where in MN are you from? I am in New Prague, about 45 miles south of minneapolis. I have planted Winter and Spring wheat for a couple of years now and have come out very, very well. When you add in the straw values, either round or small squares, the net profits are equal to or greater than corn. I am actually looking at changing some plans to oats. I have an outlet that I could contract to 2.97 a bushel. With very little inputs and the straw included, the net looks very appealing. It's a lot easier putting $10.00 worth of seed and $10.00 worth of chemical on oats after bean ground and end up with 80-110 bushel yield @ 2.97/bushel plus 80-100 Small square bales @2.50-3.00/bale.... do the math. Last year I had Spring wheat @ 69b/acre@ $4.97/bushel + straw, Winter wheat went 89b/acre @ $5.00/bushel + straw.... I am definetly keeping it in my rotation for this year, I have about 45 acres of winter wheat seeded, it has broken dormancy and looks very good. I will topdress N next week if weather permits.

Andy

You don't want volunteer oats coming back in your wheat crop. That's a mess.

You want your wheat rotating in behind beans or corn, not a small grain.

Allan

Out here in West Texas - planting tends to be from late August to mid-October. Seeding rates are often around 20-45 pounds of seed per acre for dryland, up to 120-200 pounds of seed per acre for irrigated. Usually, the guys putting out that much seed plan on grazing it heavily and will plant early.

The rancher that used to put cattle on my wheat every year averaged 3.2 pounds per day gain on several hundred head the last year we did that - but that was several years back.

Dryland yields are variable, but 20-30 bushels/acre is a decent/good crop. Irrigated can make 80-110 per acre for a very good crop.

It used to be easy to grow pretty good yields - but the past few years have seemed pretty tough. Insect pressures, drought, disease, etc, have all combined for some poor years, but this year is really looking great so far with early moisture and all this snow.

Don't know how much of this translates to MN!

HH