The Flowering Wheat

The wheat is at the flowering stage right now where it actually produces small "flowers" on the head of the plant. This picture is blurry, but below I pointed where the flowers are:

The wheat and barley are being sprayed with fungicide because the crop is so susceptible at this time. The barley has been checked for thrips, which is an insect that infects the head of the barley before it emerges from the stem. We did not see any signs of that, but there is concern now about scab being a problem in the wheat with all of the rain and humidity we have been experiencing. Scab (technically known as fusarium head blight) is a fungal disease that can occur in small grain crops and cause reductions in quality and yield.

Here is a photo of wheat infected with scab:

Photo by Marcia McMullen, taken from www.ag.ndsu.edu


So fields will continue to be checked for this along with others diseases and insects.