The same crops were poorly tillered with counts of 300-500 shoots/m2.

Mid May and later sown crops appear to be tillering better with some early counts of 650shoots/m2.

It is believed the record high temperatures at the end April to mid May pushed rapid wheat vegetative growth from emergence to the first node stage which has led to wheat plants having one less tiller than normal. We found Gregory, Ventura, Suntop and Livingston crops were all at the 1st node stage and a Suntop crop sown on 5th May was reaching the second node stage.

The crops we looked at and the sowing dates of the crops in the group records were sown at the start of the recommended window-it’s a one off with the high temperatures and something farmers can’t do anything about.

Most farmers have large sowing programs and have to start at the earliest recommended time in order to get as much of their winter crop sowings sown in the optimum period.

Making matters worse is crops were sown into excellent soil moisture and emergence was quick often within seven days. 

The optimum time for wheat flowering is the last week September which is the tradeoff between later sowing to lower frost risk and sowing early enough to avoid higher temperatures which reduce yield.

We want frosts now to slow the crops up but we don’t them around flowering.

The brighter aspect is that the crops sown after mid May appear to be tillering better and flowering will be later reducing the frost risk. Hopefully last season repeats itself as we had a few early sown irrigated Livingston, Suntop and Wedgetail crops reaching the first node stage on 20th July which yielded 5-6.5t/ha.

We also have early flowering canola as we did last year but most of these crops yielded moderately last year so it is less of a worry.

With the great start to the season many group farmers are aiming for 7-8t/ha wheat yields in Spring watering layouts. The shoots/m2 window at the 1st node stage is 500-800 shoots/m2 so the 500 shoot crops still have 8t/ha potential but can’t afford to lose any more shoots. For dryland crops we are looking for 350-500 shoots/m2.

Nutrition of most crops was excellent as we could find the first two leaves which were still green.  The speed of the first node development of the early sown crops surprised farmers and meant crops should have been N top dressed two weeks earlier.

The other surprise is although moisture rod probes indicated soil moisture 60cm deep for a two per cent flowering canola crop at Jerilderie the G Dot soil moisture sensor showed the loss of three lights at 30cm deep.

The Suntop crop at Berrigan had lost two lights at 30cm depth.

Both crops had a full seven lights moisture profile at 60cm.

Paddocks have really dried out in the last two weeks with many farmers ground topdressing and spraying crops.

This is backed up by readings from weather stations from Yarrawonga to Tuppal and Deniliquin showing the last significant 25mm plus rainfalls were in early June with small amounts since.

The soil moisture upside is most paddocks have subsoil moisture to100cm compared to only 45cm last season.

This is much better for dryland paddocks. For spring irrigated layouts if we don’t get a good 25mm rain in the next three to four weeks we may have to apply the first spring irrigation in late August.

We have found that when 50 per cent available soil moisture is left it is very  important to irrigate immediately before any signs of moisture stress as it sets up yield potential for the rest of spring.

Farmers without soil moisture sensors generally water two weeks too late and wonder why they don’t get the expected yield responses.