Organic Research Winner!

Sometimes you read a research paper at just the right time – basically because someone asked you a question that the research paper talks about! This is exactly what happened when I got notice that this paper was being published. I had a question about how to do weed control in organic wheat and the question is one that is hard to answer. My answer, basically you wait as late as you can to plant, make sure to have a clean seedbed, plant a little deeper than normal and use a rotary hoe set very shallow to take out “white thread” weeds till the wheat is established.

Notice the wheat seed singulated on the vacuum planter plate.

But what if there was a better way? This research paper explores the idea of a uniform planting pattern for wheat across the field versus a typical drill which plants in drill rows that are about 7-8 inches apart. This is not necessarily new technology. We do have precision planters for small grains that do a great job placing seeds together in a uniform pattern. There are many studies using precision planters in wheat that show a minimum increase in yield of 10% with a maximum of 60%.

What is unique about this research is the fact that they were looking at organic wheat production and the ability of precision planting to increase yields but maybe as important also control weeds. In the two years they conducted this study, the weed biomass production was 73-82% less with the precision planting (Uniform seed spacing) versus the typical drill row spacing pattern. So, what do you do? It could be worth it to try and lease a precision drill for your next organic wheat crop and see if it helps – I bet it does.