From the Field: Stands, Snow Mold, and Mites

Spring planting season is now complete for the Variety Testing Program. Due to the prolonged cold this spring, most sites were planted about two weeks behind schedule. So far, all sites look like we achieved good stands with the exception of Plaza, which had some spotty emergence in spots. We ended up replanting Farmington after wet soil conditions caused some planting issues part way through the trial. The replanted trial is just now coming up so final stands there are forthcoming.

I mentioned earlier this spring that crusting led to lower stands in the fall planted HRS trial at Moses Lake. We had a very similar circumstance occur at Othello as well, so keep that in mind when looking at the data, if it is published later this summer. I noticed some damping off of spring wheat at our Almira site, but I would say visible plant death was ~2%.

Winter trials are progressing rapidly now with the warm temperatures. Some varieties have already headed out at Walla Walla and we will begin taking heading notes at Dusty and Connell the week of May 15. Dayton was at flag leaf stage this week. Most winter wheat along Highway 2 is around Feekes 7-8, well past jointing but flag leaf not fully emerged.

We took our second round of snow mold regrowth notes in Douglas County on May 16. As expected, some varieties with heavy damage managed to regrow well while others did not. There were also some entries at Reardan that did not recover well after cold/snow mold damage.

At Fairfield, plots were uniform; however, VI Voodoo CL+ stood out as being behind other varieties in all three reps, perhaps due to some winter cold damage. Interestingly, I found winter grain mites at our Fairfield winter site–likely a result of visiting the trial late in the evening when they tend to be more active.

Coordinates and planting dates for each site of the Variety Testing Program (2023)

View the PDF maps of the sites.

Location	Google Coordinates	Planting Date
Pasco	46.611469, -119.226651	16-Mar
Lind	47.003500, -118.571300	16-Mar
Moses Lake	47.115300, -119.112683	17-Mar
Horse Heaven	46.197638, -119.580877	30-Mar
Endicott	46.905085, -117.746907	5-Apr
Walla Walla	46.115541, -118.237102	6-Apr
Lamont	47.119056, -117.825691	13-Apr
Reardan	47.663854, -118.034981	14-Apr
Mayview	46.589300, -117.401210	19-Apr
Bickleton	46.038840, -120.263061	20-Apr
Almira	47.886560, -118.894723	26-Apr
Pullman	46.693330, -117.146946	26-Apr
St. John	47.082824, -117.518538	27-Apr
Plaza	47.253260, -117.305460	27-Apr
Dayton	46.359165, -117.951514	1-May
Fairfield	47.395370, -117.067805	2-May
Palouse	46.9554833, -117.2000500	3-May
Farmington	47.038104, -117.049306	11-May

Importantly, myself and my crew have yet to observe stripe rust at any of our locations in Washington. I did see, however, that Dr. Christina Hagerty, Oregon State University cereal pathologist, just posted that she observed her first stripe rust of the season in a trial near Pendleton, Oregon this week. I will continue to share if and when I see stripe rust this season around Washington.