From variable-rate seeding to split-nitrogen applications, top producers reveal the strategies behind record-breaking yields
Since reaching 80 million acres of wheat in 1980, U.S. farmers are growing less of the crop: just 50 million acres of all classes planted for the 2023–24 crop year. Still, wheat is important on farms in nearly every state. It is a key component of a well-balanced crop rotation, and adds diversified income to farmers who fine-tune crop management skills and push yields.
Participants in the 2023 National Wheat Yield Contest used several strategies to push yields, many of which they share below.
Setting the Stage
Profitable yields start with fresh new seed each year, says John Wesolowski. The farmer in Warren, Minnesota, buys new spring wheat seed each year, adding a package of insecticide, fungicide, and biological seed treatment.
New seed has a pure genetic profile, whereas farmer-saved seed may have watered-down genetics, depending on how many years it has been saved. New seed can be expensive, but for Wesolowski, the convenience outweighs the cost. “I can go to my supplier and get professionally treated seed with all the goodies that I want. And it’s perfect,” he explains.
Travis Freeburg, who grows hard red winter wheat in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, agrees. Buying new seed each year allows him to take advantage of new genetics. He has long used Clearfield varieties from Colorado State University. For 2024, he added a Coaxium variety. “With Coaxium, I can mix Aggressor herbicide with broadleaf herbicides for one-pass control,” he says.
Lance Olson has a flax/spring wheat/canola crop rotation on his farm in southwest North Dakota. He uses a Shelbourne Reynolds stripper header on flax and wheat to ensure as much residue as possible protects the soil and preserves moisture. Olson says the farm gets about 10 inches of precipitation each year on average, and soils range from sand to loam. “We have about every type of soil you can imagine,” he says, “and choose our wheat varieties to match our soils.”
Seeding Strategies
Wesolowski’s field of WestBred WB9590 topped the dryland spring wheat category with a 126.09 bushel-per-acre yield. In 2023, for the first time, he adopted variable-rate wheat seeding. He adjusted the seeding rate from 1.5 million seeds per acre to 1 million seeds per acre on higher-producing areas, and 1.375 million seeds on lower-producing regions.
He’d planted 1.5 million seeds per acre as a longtime standard, but he explains, “I just thought there was too much seed, and plants competed with each other.” Those thickly planted areas caused lodging and harvestability issues. Now, with the right amount of seed in the right place, stands emerge thinner and shorter, are less prone to lodging, and easier to harvest.
Wesolowski says he didn’t notice any yield loss where the seeding rate was lower. Moreover, he says he saved about $8 per acre in seed costs.
Olson, who earned second place in the spring wheat division with a dryland yield of 122.09 bpa, says a key strategy is keeping seeding equipment up-to-date and in tip-top shape. “I don’t buy new stuff,” he says. “I just keep mine updated and well maintained.”
Fertilizer Strategies
Alex Noll, whose 103.99 bpa yield won the Kansas dryland division, deploys some of the same strategies in soft wheat as he does in corn. “The biggest takeaway for me is adopting a split-nutrition application,” says Noll, of Winchester, Kansas. He points out that many standard wheat programs call for adding a big percentage of nitrogen in the fall or in dormancy. “Any corn grower aiming for high yields won’t put all the fertilizer on at the beginning of the season,” he asserts.
A frequent winner of corn yield contests, Noll applies about 30% of the suggested nitrogen rates at dormancy, 30% at early green-up, and the remainder between green-up and the flag-leaf stage. “I want every flag leaf to be the exact same height,” says Noll. “I don’t want any plant to compete with each other. I want them to be exactly the same.”
Whereas Noll’s farm receives about 40 inches of annual precipitation, Freeburg’s farm gets only about 15 inches. His yield goal and fertilizer strategy reflect that discrepancy. “We’re doing more grid sampling, and even did tissue testing in 2023,” says Freeburg. Performed at flag-leaf time, tissue testing may be too late in the season to address nutrient deficiencies on dryland acres. However, on irrigated fields, the crop can be spoon-fed nutrition through the pivot later in the season.
Freeburg keeps the same base fertilizer program in dryland and irrigated wheat: 40 Rock (12-40-0, with sulfur and zinc) in-furrow at planting, and top-dressing in the spring with more nitrogen. “We try to have about 1.2 to 1.5 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of yield goal,” he says.
Wesolowski soil-tests every field each year and has adopted variable-rate anhydrous ammonia. An NZone GL nitrogen stabilizer ensures the crop gets nitrogen when needed. “The first field I used that rate controller on, it paid for itself,” he explains. “It’s paid me back many times over.” As a bonus, the program has enabled Wesolowski to reduce nitrogen application across all crops.
Protect the Crop
More often, farmers aiming for top yields routinely apply fungicide. Whether diseases are in play or not, fungicides seem to improve plant health and give wheat a longer growing season to maximize grain fill and improve test weight.
Freeburg’s fungicide program includes Priaxor or Nexicor between the 2- to 6-leaf stage, and another application at flag leaf. “It’s more of an overall plant health package,” he says.
Olson applies one pass of Miravis Ace just as the crop begins to head out. “We’ve left test strips, and even in dry years, the fungicide boosts yields,” he says.
To maximize grain production for the 2024 crop, Noll used a plant growth regulator at flag leaf to boot stage. “We want to raise grain, not straw,” he says. “I think that was something I missed in 2023 and could have been the difference between 127 bushel wheat and 150 bushel or better wheat.”
Final Thoughts
Although wheat acres are declining, a host of benefits remain to grow the cereal crop. Besides varying crop rotation, wheat adds carbon to the soil, breaks up disease, weed, and pest cycles, and diversifies income.
“No doubt, we’re able to generate a lot of natural carbon by including it in a corn/soybean rotation,” says Noll, who plants double-crop soybeans in stubble right after wheat harvest. “And it would be really difficult for me to move away from the income potential of soft wheat plus double-crop soybeans.”
Wheat is a grass crop, like corn. Managed as such, the yield and profit potential per acre is enticing. “Three years ago, I was ready to swear off wheat. I could get good protein and test weight, but not yield,” Wesolowski says. “I decided to give it one more try and change a few things.” In 2023, he says, his wheat enterprise produced the best yield ever.
“It was my highest farm average ever, and I have protein and test weight to go along with it,” he says. “It is like a spring wheat farmers’ dream.”
