Lodging in Cereals in 2024

We and many of our customers experienced more lodging than normal in 2024. Matt from Premium Ag commented on our summer tour that there was more available nitrogen in the soil in spring vs normal. He also talked about the N being closer to the surface and zone variability in a field.

We have noticed that European and American barley varieties have more tillering capacity vs Canadian bred varieties, meaning we should be using lower seeding rates vs others. Irrigation we have been at 25-30 plants per sq foot targets, and dryland 15-25 plants target.

I think my strategy for Esma, Sirish, SY Stanza, and Bill Coors 100 on irrigation will be closer to 25 plants now with some people going to back to 20 plants on the Bill Coors 100 variety.

We use Moddus PGR on all of our irrigated barley and I think that is the best bet for standability. We even did 2 passes on a weaker standing barley variety in 2024 vs only one in 2023.

For irrigated wheats and oats I really like Manipulator PGR.
When we do an irrigated winter wheat it seems like the herbicide timing and PGR timing is perfect to tank mix. For spring crops we have done separate passes and or a tank mix with manipulator. 

Talk to your chemical retailer or the reps below for optimum tank mixing:
Manipulator: Jamie Stringam 403 915 6018
Moddus: Sterling Mitchell: 403 461 8321
Remember to talk to your buyer before using a PGR to make sure there are no market risks.