(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back to Field Advisor. Today I'm excited to talk about another topic we haven't covered recently on the podcast and that is wheat. Today I have John Howell with me who farms in Monroe and Randolph counties and he's going to talk today about wheat, maybe some current conditions of his double crop soybeans and other things that we'll check in on. So John first, I just want to talk about what the wheat yields looked like this summer for you as you got the wheat out of the fields. Did you have an early harvest? What did that all look like? - Sure, we did have an early harvest. I would say generally speaking harvest was about 10 days earlier than normal. I think a lot of that was a combination of a pretty warm February and March where that crop really advanced pretty rapidly through some early growth stages. We did get wet through the second half of April and then parts of May that made me slow it down a little bit but then we kind of finished pretty rapidly and harvested it there in that June 15th timeframe. Yields were strong again. I wouldn't call them the record yields that we had in 2023. In 2023, we had some phenomenal wheat yields on our personal farm. But certainly I know of some other wheat growers that experienced some tremendous yields this past year as well. So continues to be a pretty stable crop for us in Southern Illinois and the yields just continue to be really strong and good quality and it's been a really nice rotation for us. - If someone doesn't know what wheat yields look like, could you give us a number like a range of what's record and what's about average? - Yeah, so I think the state of Illinois is averaging somewhere in the realm of 80 bushel wheat per acre for a lot of guys that are intensively managing their yield goal is closer to 100 bushels per acre. And certainly over the last five years, our APH has approached 100 bushels per acre just because we've strung together five really good years of yield and built a pretty good base there. So that kind of gives you an idea on kind of averages and targets that crop can stretch way up though to 125, 130, 40 bushels per acre. I know this past growing season in the Illinois wheat association yield contest, the winner hit 150 plus bushels per acre. And I've seen some yields that get up there that high, not I wouldn't say big broad regions or big fields, but certainly some hotspots and whatnot. You can see some pretty impressive wheat yields. - What other than maybe favorable conditions, what has attributed do you think to those higher yields? Like talk about the management and what farmers are doing to achieve those yields. - Sure. I think first and foremost, it starts with the genetics. There's been a tremendous improvement in wheat genetics over the last 10 years and just not only yield potential, but all of the agronomics that kind of go along with needing wheat to get there, that's probably played a pretty big role in it. From there, nitrogen management has been pretty impactful not only in pushing yield levels, but also improving the standability of the crop. If you wheat set crop that if you put too much nitrogen on, it's gonna fall down. If you put too much nitrogen on your corn crop, you just wasted money. And so, weach that kind of dangerous crop on it, the harder you push it, the increased potential you have of it lodging, and there's a lot of harvest concerns and whatnot with lodged wheat. So nitrogen management has played a pretty big impact. There's been a huge improvement in fungicides over the last number of years that have really improved the quality of the wheat and helping control fusarium head blight and lowering that risk of omatoxin dock. So I think if you combine all three of those things together and then certainly there's been improvements in micronutrient management and biologicals and stand establishments and the equipment technologies, drills and airseaters have gotten better at metering seed and the openers have just improved, I think just everything in general, just like a lot of the industry has continued to improve and wheat is no different. The one thing I will say about wheat though, of the three major crops in the Midwest, it seems to be the most responsive crop to what they call an intensive management or intentional management. It's the one that has the consistent return on the investment of a dollar spent getting you more than a dollar back in return. - What would you say, John, was your biggest challenge this past year with the wheat in terms of maybe disease or pests? You said you had strong yields, they weren't record yields, but they were definitely were strong, but I'm assuming it didn't come without some challenges. - Absolutely, so I think two major challenges that our crop had to endure through, we've had really warm December and January is the last couple of years. And that allows aphids that insect aphid to grow and propagate in that wheat crop. And that aphid vectors barley yellow dwarf virus, which can be pretty yield limiting. And of course we run an insecticide seed treatment on our wheat that gives us a nice six week window or so after we plant the wheat. But when you have a Christmas day that's in the 70s and you're wearing shorts to grandmas for Christmas, those aphids are out there growing and reproducing and feeding on that wheat. So that's probably one of the major challenges and we're trying to maybe change some of our management techniques to address that situation 'cause it's coming a little bit more normal year after year. The other thing was just all that rainfall through April and May, wheat's a crop as we know that doesn't like a lot of wet feet and to have the amount of rainfall that it went through in April and May, that was certainly a challenge for it. I think 20 years ago, the crop would have been much, much worse than it is today, but with standability and improvements in disease ratings and the use of fungicides and whatnot, the crop was much better today than it would have been in the past with dealing with that kind of rain. - Anything else on this wheat crop this year that you want to mention? We'll head into double crop next, but anything else that stuck out this growing season that you think other farmers should be aware of? - Yeah, I think there was some lodged wheat in the area. It was a unique lodging timeframe though. Most years, if wheat's gonna lodge, it lodges relatively late in its lifespan where the head's already filled out and there's a lot of grain in that head and it's pretty heavy and we get some storms and it lays that wheat crop down. There was a fair amount of wheat lodged in the areas this year prior to heading and it had so much to do with all that rain in April and early May and some of the storms attributed to that took that wheat crop down then versus, and so that was a little harder to manage something that I've never really seen wheat lodge that early in the growing season, but there was some concerns with there and do we need to maybe look at some varieties that maybe stand better or use a plant growth regulator to improve standability a little more and maybe there's timings of that plant growth regulator to improve that standability. That's probably the biggest thing in that harvest window. Like my dad and I have a pretty strong general rule of thumb that we're trying to get all of our wheat harvested in a five to seven day window and you wanna align your equipment with that. You wanna be able to have your plan set in place that when you start cutting that wheat that we don't handle too high of moisture, 18 to 20% moisture is where we typically start, but when we start there, we of course dries very quickly. June's typically pretty warm. And so when we start harvesting, we're trying to hit 50, 60, 70 acres a day. And then when that crop really dries out, we can push harder and hit almost 80 acres a day to try to get that, this is through one combine, but to be able to get that crop off in a five to seven day window. I just feel like it limits so much of the risk of a dockage from lower test weights or yield reduction or just all those concerns that can come with a pop up storms happen in June. And so just limit that crop staying in there. So be prepared to get it out in a quick fashion. - Get it out in a quick fashion also too, if you're following with double crop soybeans. So how did that planting go? And what are you seeing there? - Really good. It was a great window to plant those soybeans into, soil conditions were in great shape. We didn't have to mud the weed out or anything. So we were able to no-till those soybeans right into that wheat stove. I am not a straw producer, so I cut our wheat relatively high. Just use a draper header, not a don't have a stripper header, but cut the wheat relatively high, leave quite a bit of the stem and stalk standing. You kind of limit that mat of residue that's on the ground there and no-till right into it. We have warm favorable conditions. We caught a couple rain events there right shortly after. We planted those double crop soybeans, they jumped out of the ground. And then the second half of June and July, we had plenty of moisture and those soybeans just kept growing. They were above the wheat stubble canopy. And the double crop soybean was canopy themselves, gosh, by mid-July, which is really, really quick. I mean, you're talking about, they've only been in the ground for a month and they were already canopying. So they've been a really good looking, double crop soybean crop this year. I think our areas is probably in probably the best shape in southwestern Illinois. As you go east of us a little bit, they've missed some of the rains in August that we've caught and even here in the early parts of September. We've been very fortunate in Monroe County to continue catching eight tenths of rain or nine tenths or an inch of rain. And we caught one on Labor Day weekend. We caught one this past weekend with remnants from the hurricane and those double crop soybeans haven't reached physiological maturity. So they continue to set a better seed size and they're fully done flowering and potting, but just continue to drive yield. So we've been really fortunate with the weather of continuing to catch some pretty good rain events. Of course, double crop soybeans are that growing season is pretty compacted. It's kind of a real quick sprint race to the finish line, but those late August, early September hurricane shirt can help build a really good crop. I remember back in 2012, our double crop soybeans out. We yielded a lot of our corn by a pretty wide margin. There was hurricane that blew up there at the end of August and gave those double crop soybeans an extra drink and a lot of 'em cut in the '45, '50 bushel per acre range when our corn was struggling to hit that kind of yield. So certainly think we have that kind of potential for 50 plus bushel per acre soybeans in a double crop situation. And there might be some fields, some of my better ground and fields that really, really look good. They might hit 60 bushels per acre on a double crop. - And John, you said you don't plant any full season soybeans. Like you're planting corn in the spring, then you got your wheat that you're harvesting and then you plant those double crop soybeans, correct? Do you wanna talk about that? - Yeah, yeah. So our rotation is we'll plant corn, harvest it in the fall and I'll no till wheat directly into that corn stock residue. And then obviously that wheat's harvested in June. We'll plant a double crop soybean into that. And then the following spring, that acre will go back to corn. So it's every two years, there's three crops growing on that acre. We've done it for a couple of different reasons. We're a relatively small farming operation and just a way to kind of maximize the acres that we get across and utilize our equipment across quote unquote more acres. So it's turned our 600 acre farm into a 900 acre farm by doing that. And I like having that distribution of cash flow from not all of my eggs are in a fall, harvest basket. I've got some revenue coming in in that mid summer timeframe. We are predominantly a no-till farm. And so I'm pretty big into tillage reduction and nutrient management and trying to improve my soil health. And I like having that growing crop on there. You know, we kind of joke around that we eats the original cash cover crop. And so I think the rotation has worked really well for us. There's certainly been some challenges along the way. And this one, this particular growing season is going to be somewhat challenging because our corn crop was relatively late planted. I normally like a three or four week window between corn harvest and sowing that wheat into the corn stocks. This year is going to be a much much more compressed timeframe just from the fact that I haven't even started corn harvest yet and it's September 18th. So we traditionally will start sowing that second week of October, you know, the eighth, ninth, 10th somewhere in there will start sowing wheat. So I'm still a week off from corn harvest. So that'll be somewhat challenging this year. Some of the other things that have been challenging, you know, were in an area where you can plant 118, 120 day corn pretty easily. And then when you, you know, manage it pretty high and apply fungicides multiple times throughout the year, you have a relatively healthy corn crop that is a great big plant and stays green long. That's a hybrid or a field that's pretty hard to no till wheat into just because the corn stock is so intact still. There's so much residue out there. It's hard to get any kind of good stand establishment. So it's a tightrope to walk, but we've tried to identify corn hybrids that fit our rotational plan, you know, without giving up yield potential. So we tried to shorten our maturity group up on corn. We try to pick hybrids that are a little shorter plant structure that maybe don't have that great big robust plant. - Yeah. - And certainly we're trying to, I've not given up, you know, spraying fungicides or anything like that. But just try to manage the corn crop with the plan of sowing wheat into it there in the fall. And so yeah, it's worked well. We've been some tremendous wheat yields. I've never had 150 bushel wheat, but I've had 140 bushel wheat several different times. So I feel like we're doing a lot of things, right? But it's, I think this is a general rule of thumb in agriculture every year is an experiment. And every year you learn things from and take some things away and want to improve the next year. And sometimes mother nature humbles you at the end of the growing season as well. But, you know, we're just trying to get a little better every year with it. - Yeah. No two years is the same. You know, you start comparing to one year and then you're like, well, it was a little different. Maybe some years have some similarities. Like last year they thought it might be another 2012 and the rains came. So it's all, that's a good way to put it. Real quick, John, I want to go back to you talking about your wheat stubble and then throwing in double crop soybeans, has, how has your wheat control been or wheat management has that wheat stubble helped at all in that or what does that all look like? - Absolutely has helped. Our double crop soybeans are incredibly easy to keep clean. And I think there's two reasons for that. We keep our wheat very clean. And so we make two herbicide passes on that wheat acre to keep particularly winter annual broadleafs out of that wheat. We don't really have much issues with winter annual grasses and we don't have a lot of garlic, but we're trying to keep the winter annual broadleafs out of it. That chemistry seems to have some activity on some of the small seeded broadleafs that would then grow into that soybean crop. And so we're starting clean to begin with and we've managed our seed bank down because we just never have weeds growing. And then you have all of that wheat straw residue that's creating a nice blanket there of ground cover. We traditionally just don't have a lot of issues with any weeds coming through those double crop soybeans. And we do some seed production for seed company relatively local to this area. And I've done extended flex soybeans. I've done endless soybeans. I've done conventional soybeans. And we've been able to keep all those very clean on that double crop acre. I think it's just, like I said, it fits into that same model of using cereal rye as a cover crop. And I'm not saying that wheat's got the same allyliopathic properties that cereal rye does, but it certainly has some. And it seems to be a relatively easy acre to keep clean from a wheat standpoint. - Yeah. So now, John, let's real quick hop into this fall. You said it's going to be a tight window. What preparations are you looking for right now when it comes to getting that wheat crop in? Anything that's sticking out to, like I said, you said the tighter window, but you'll be ready to go once that corn crop is out. - Yeah, we'll try to get, we'll try to focus on certain acres where in weeds no different. I guess it should take half a step back. We kind of place wheat varieties by field type and by planting date, very similar to where you would corn or soybeans. And so I have some wheat varieties that don't want to get planted first. And then there's other varieties that can handle a little later planting date. And so we're going to preference those fields that are going to go to wheat with a variety that can handle the earlier planting date. We'll harvest that corn first. That corn will come off 22, 23% moisture, running through the dryer, put it in the bin, that sort of thing. We typically hire a local retailer to spread P&K fertilizer on that acre for us, relatively inexpensive fall spreading program. And it just frees us up to be able to focus on corn harvest and in a quicker fashion. We're also relatively close to the St. Louis River terminals. And so if we can find some relatively dry corn and make quick turnarounds by delivering straight to the river, we'll do so. Our corn's not that dry though. So this year's going to be a year where you'll have to go through the dryer and the bin to get anything done here in September. But just everything is kind of prepped, ready to go. The drill's hooked up, ready to go. The seeds in the tender, everything, you want to just be prepared for when that corn comes out. I'd like to have some mother nature degradation on, I'd like to see that corn stock get rained on a couple times. We've used some of the biological products in the past where you spray on that corn stock to help it break down. I've seen maybe anecdotal gain from doing that, but certainly mother nature is the one that really holds the golden key for making that happen. So I'd like to see some sunlight, some rain events, some just general breakdown of that corn stock before that wheat gets sowed. But then once the P&K is spread, we will sow the wheat into that corn stock. And then we typically don't make a herbicide application on it until the wheat has two leaf stages. So that's typically, every year is a little different, but end of November timeframe is when that wheat will get sprayed with a fall herbicide. - Anything else you want to add about this growing season before I turn it into I want to have a couple other questions really to the overall program of wheat. Anything else you want to add about the season that farmers should be aware of? - Yeah, I think like for us personally, I'm sure there's some lower lane fields that'll have some drown out spots and whatnot that might have some cockbears that have come through or some water hemp patches or something that the corn drown it out in. We will certainly address that in a one-off situation. So we'll try to work that acre up where there's been a drown it out spot and try to, everything's with the end goal of trying to maximize the stand establishment of that wheat crop. There's so much at stake there on getting a good stand established, just like getting a good stand established in a corner swimming crop. So we need to take those extra steps here in the fall to ensure that we do so. - Let's turn the conversation real quick. I want to talk about the double crop wheat system and many more people are saying it's profitable. It's a good system to look into. It's been profitable for your farm because you keep doing it over and over again. What would you say to a farmer that's looking into the system and thinking about giving your try? - Yeah. - And vice versa, a farm that says, "I don't think this is gonna work for me, "but you want to tell them it can work." - Sure. So I have a Excel spreadsheet built that has corn yields on it, full season soybean yields on it and wheat yields, double crop soybean yields on it and the commodity prices. And every year I punch in all of our input costs, everything from seed fertilizer, equipment, interest, crop insurance, fuel, hauling, drying, everything that gets done to that commodity. I try to include that in this expense and pretty consistently over the last 10 years the wheat and double crop soybean acre has been the most profitable on a net profit basis. And that's after you include planting that acre twice, harvesting that acre twice, running a sprayer across it multiple times, nitrogen applications, all of those things. Because especially here in Southern Illinois where we don't have the yield potential to hit 250 bushel corn or 300 bushel corn, that central Illinois would maybe be able to realize 100 bushel wheat and 40 bushel double crop soybeans compete with 225 bushel corn in a better net-to-net situation. And so just from a profitability standpoint alone, it makes tremendous sense. Then when you include all of those properties from wheat management and soil health and utilizing the extra nutrients left over from the previous crop. And I think the University of Illinois had done a multi-year research project up at the Champaign campus on including wheat and it was a corn on corn study and then they included wheat into it. And they saw like a 10 bushel increase in yield where they had broke that rotation up and included wheat for a year. And I think there's a similar study on soybeans, it's maybe not 10 bushels. But you see improvements of those other crops yields by including wheat, you're building organic matter. And so I think there's dozens of reasons why we should include wheat on more acres here in Illinois. Illinois tends to lead the way and software at winter wheat acres planted. And predominantly south of whether you call it route 16 or interstate 72, it continues to inch its way north but where wheat is got tremendous yield potential and there's markets to sell that grain into. Obviously you can grow wheat anywhere but if you don't have a market to sell it into that doesn't help anybody. But in those areas where you have a market where you've got the acre that really the crop yields on I think it should be considered on everyone's acre. And every now and then I hear, yeah, but that wheat crops, that's a lot of work. But I always go back to, well, our job or our career as farmers, I mean, that's part of it. There's nothing given for free in life so to speak. And so does wheat and double crop soybeans take a little extra work compared to just a corn acre or just a soybean acre? I guess you can make that argument and maybe it would be valid. But if our end goal is to be profitable to improve our soil, to improve our net profit, I think wheat is a tremendous crop to include. - It's a good excellent way to put it. I've heard people north of 80 are growing wheat. And I think it's something maybe farmers tried and got away from, and now maybe they're looking at it again. And you said you're seeing a pretty good demand for it on the market front, correct? - Yeah, so certainly eight or 10 years ago, there was a big exodus out of wheat generally speaking across the Midwest. And we had had a couple of years in a row where we had pretty wet conditions in May and June that led to poor quality wheat, both from a yield and test weight and a vomitoxin standpoint. And I didn't personally experience this, but I know of people that had wheat that was basically unsellable. You would take it to the terminal and they would say, well, your dock is more than what the wheat's worth. We're just gonna dump it or whatever, you know. And so there was some pretty bad stories out there from that. You could certainly understand why folks had gotten out of raising wheat from that standpoint. But since then, like I said, there's been some tremendous genetic gains, there's been tremendous advancements and fungicides and equipment to be able to apply those things. And so the crop is so much more potential now than it did just that short time ago. So I think those folks maybe should take a look at it again. Then when you include some of the changes that have been made to crop insurance, you know, you can, certain areas can ensure those double crop soybeans separate from their full season soybeans. So you kind of limit some of the risk tied to that. Just a lot of things have brought that back around and why folks even include the Ukrainian conflict. And that conflict started. We saw this great big, huge run-up in wheat price points and it became obviously profitable then. There was a lot of folks that took it, a look at it very seriously. Certainly there's been a pretty big erosion in commodity prices since then, but that's been the case for corn and soybeans as well. There's one thing about American farmers and we're pretty good at what we do. We tend to raise pretty big crops year after year as a national level of speaking. And so you can understand when we have a big supply demand, maybe stay close to the same. Our commodity prices are gonna come down a little bit, but even if you include those commodity prices into your budget building, I think that wheat double crop soybean acre still looks very good. - And John, I failed to mention you are president of the Illinois Wheat Association. Talk about rounding this conversation out. Talk about the initiatives that you are trying to do here in the state of Illinois to ensure that you have the financial base, the research, the education to move wheat forward here in the state of Illinois. - Sure, so the Illinois Wheat Association currently is a membership driven organization and their entire budget is built basically on the dues paid by members. And that lends to a relatively small budget and not much of an ability to fund any kind of research programs or grant programs within university or third party research groups. And so as an association within the last 18 months, we began an initiative to bring an Illinois wheat check-off program to the state. There are several other states throughout the Midwest that have a check-off program and it'd be a tremendous way for us to just continue advancing wheat in Illinois. Our focus is more driven in the research and improvement of the crop in general, not necessarily on just the marketing or promotion of the crop, but actually research driven. My experience has been most of the research as far as management techniques or genetically speaking or just any of those things is mostly on the private sector right now and that because there's not a check-off program in the state, even the education of those ideas typically comes from the private side. And so we feel like there's kind of a void there within the industry and so a lot of our focus on this check-off is geared towards improving that space within raising wheat here in Illinois. It would be a voluntary check-off, so if it does pass here coming up in first quarter 2025, if it does pass and you're a wheat grower that doesn't want to participate in it, it is a voluntary program and you would just need to fill out the appropriate form for a refund. So there is always that positive aspect to it. Kind of somewhat of a timeline, we're currently in a spot where we are seeking signatures on a petition to take this to a vote. This isn't, if you sign the petition, it's not saying you are in favor of or against it, it's essentially saying that you're in favor of taking this check-off initiative to a vote. And once we reach that 500 signature threshold, we have a public hearing schedule with the Illinois Department of Ag in November. And so then that would be an opportunity for the public to ask questions throughout that. And then from there, that would be the voting process then in Q1. And so very optimistic about the opportunity to potentially have a check-off here in Illinois and continue improving wheat within the state and the enormous potential that it brings for wheat farmers. - And if a wheat grower, John is interested in learning more about this. Where do you recommend they go? Who do they contact? - Yeah, so Illinois wheat association does have a website, IllinoisWeek.org, there's a lot of information there on that website. We've sent out several different mailers, there's some different articles that have been written in what I would call relatively state local publications. And so there's quite a bit of information out there. I'd probably start with our wheat association website and that gets you started to point in the right directions. - All right, John, we covered a lot today, a lot of good information. I think a lot of things to think about wheat. I know, especially the double crop soybean system with wheat is fascinating and we're seeing a lot more. I should put in a plug the Illinois Soybean Association is funding research with Dr. Jessica Rakowski at the University of Illinois. We actually went and visited last Thursday about the profitability with wheat and double cropping. So it's something our association's looking into and something that farmers are definitely asking about. So I'm glad we're able to chat about this today. Anything else that you want to share before we end today? - No, not really. I just want to say thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate the last 30 minutes or so kind of promoting wheat and that double crop soybean acre and that how just it's a great rotation to look at if it's one that you kind of moved away from years ago and are thinking about bringing it back again, certainly would encourage you to take some steps forward to do so. So once again, appreciate the opportunity. - Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing and answering all these questions about this system. I'm sure if they head over to Illinoiswheat.org the association website, they'll figure out a way to get ahold of you if they have any questions. - Sure will. - All right. - Thanks again. - Thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone. Again, John, thank you and we'll talk to you soon. - Thank you. - The Field Advisor Podcast is a production of the Illinois Soybean Checkoff Program. For more agronomic news and information, visit fieldadvisor.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)
