Not long ago, brothers Matthew and Farley Gould, who farm in east-central Alberta, had no idea of the resiliency of wheat seedlings against adverse growing conditions.
But over the past three growing seasons they’ve seeded part of their hard red spring wheat crop early.
How early? Soil temperatures have barely thawed, and germinated seedlings have been exposed to snow, followed by temperature swings ranging from +20 C to -20 C.
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And they report the crop has gone on to produce excellent yields.
As they plan to seed a few thousand acres of wheat at these colder temperatures in 2024, they’re convinced a concept known as ultra-early seeding gives them opportunities to optimize yield and improve their seeding efficiency.
“This early seeding is not so much about producing higher yields, but in achieving yield stability,” Farley Gould says.
The Gould family members have a large mixed farming operation, Gould Ranching Ltd., near Consort, about 300 km southeast of Edmonton. Farm operations are handled by Farley and his wife Lisa, Matthew and his wife Lacey, and their sister Zoe.
Matthew studied environmental engineering at the University of Alberta and Farley has a degree in sustainable agriculture, also from the U of A, while Zoe is a veterinarian involved with the farming operation full time.
On the beef side, the Goulds run a large cow-calf and backgrounding operation, while also annual-cropping several thousand acres of hard red spring wheat, feed wheat, lentils, canola, and corn for silage.
“We farm on the northern tip of the Palliser Triangle and growing season moisture is often limited,” Farley says. “So by seeding early we can make better use of that available early spring moisture.”
“And if we can get our wheat seeded early, that improves our seeding efficiency and helps to spread out the workload at a busy time of year,” Matthew adds.
“Our plan is, if the weather co-operates, to seed the wheat in April, and then move into seeding lentils and a canola in May. We’ve seen that the wheat can handle some adverse growing conditions while lentils and canola are less frost-tolerant and need to be seeded under warmer growing conditions.”
Worth checking out
The Goulds became interested in early seeding dates a few years ago, when they noticed a neighbour seeding early and came across research led by agronomy researcher Brian Beres at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, exploring the idea of ultra-early seeding.
They also appreciated advice they received from former university classmate Graham Collier. Now a portfolio manager for Nufarm in Canada, Collier was a PhD student at the University of Alberta, working with Beres on the best management practices for ultra-early spring wheat seeding in the northern Great Plains as part of his thesis.
The idea of seeding early intrigued the Goulds, who’d traditionally seeded their cereals starting about May 1.
Challenging that paradigm, Beres’ research aimed to test a different model: ignore the calendar, and seed your wheat when soil temperatures reach that thawing point of about 0 C to +2 C.
On research plots all the way from Dawson Creek, B.C. through central and southern Alberta and into Saskatchewan, Beres learned over several years that getting wheat seeded early allowed the crop to make use of early spring moisture — which in some cases increased yield but, perhaps more importantly, helped to stabilize yield.
His research also showed waiting to seed until soil temperatures were in a “more conventional” temperature range of +6 to +8 C often resulted in a yield reduction.
Besides, the term “ultra-early” means different things for different parts of the Prairies. In southern Alberta, for example, fields have cleared and soil temperatures have reached 0 C sometimes as early as mid-February — whereas in east-central Alberta, the Goulds say most years the snow hasn’t gone and soil temperatures haven’t reached that 0 C mark until early April. But at the time of an early January interview, with no snow on the ground, it could mean an earlier seeding date in 2024.
April is good timing, but if seeding is possible earlier yet, the Goulds say they’ll give it consideration.
“The research has been conducted, the evidence is there,” Farley says. “We just had to see how it would work in with our farm management.”
‘Just kept growing’
For the Goulds, the first year of early wheat seeding was 2021. By early April, fields were clear of snow and soil temperatures had reached that 0 C to +2 C range, so they seeded about 500 acres of hard red spring wheat.
“The crop no sooner came out of the ground and we had freezing temperatures and it snowed two or three times,” says Matthew. “The cold did cause some striping on the leaves, but other than that, there was no visible damage or setback to the crop. It just kept growing.”
With the unsettled weather, they weren’t able to get the rest of their wheat, nor their canola and lentils, seeded until May. Then in early summer it got extremely hot and dry, which set everything back. Those hot and dry conditions, not the cold temperatures of early seeding, affected the wheat growth.
Come 2022, they didn’t hesitate to seed another 500 acres of hard red spring wheat in early April as soil temperatures reached the 0 C mark.
“We saw how the crop had handled the cold temperatures in 2021, so we were sold on the idea at that point,” Farley says. “In 2022 we seeded the wheat on April 3 or 4, it germinated, later we got snow, then it turned warm and shot up to +20 C, and then before the end of April it turned cold and dropped down to -20 C. We couldn’t see any damage to the crop at all. It handled those extremes very well.”
As the 2022 growing season progressed, all crops did extremely well through to harvest, the Goulds say.
For the 2023 growing season, though, there was a late start to spring; snow stayed on the fields well into April. It then warmed up suddenly, so pretty well everything was seeded on the old seeding timetable, starting in early May. Ultra-early seeding wasn’t an option.
For 2024, the Goulds hope if the weather co-operates, they’ll again be able to start seeding wheat when soil temperatures reach 0 C. Using a 60-foot-wide Pillar disc drill, they hope to be going by early April and keep going until all wheat is in the ground.
“If we can seed about 500 acres of wheat per day, and the weather stays good, we can have it all seeded by the end of April,” Matthew says.
Under the old system of starting May 1 at the earliest, they would seed some wheat first, switch to lentils and canola, then finish off the season seeding wheat again.
“Starting in April would help spread out the workload and mean more efficient use of our seeding equipment,” he says.
Risk management
Two management changes related to this ultra-early seeding involve the handling and application of seed treatments and early-season weed control. Seed treatments such as insecticides and fungicides need to be applied at temperatures above 0 C, so the Goulds may need to turn on aeration fans to warm seed in the bin before treatment is applied.
And while usually a herbicide is applied before seeding, when seeding in early April with soil temperatures around 0 C, there are no weeds. So on early-seeded wheat acres, the Goulds apply post-seeding, pre-emergent herbicide.
“You have to pay careful attention to timing,” says Farley. “We want to be able to catch the weeds, while making sure the crop hasn’t emerged.”
“We consider early seeding of wheat as an important risk management tool,” says Matthew. “We are not aiming to increase yield as much as not lose yield by trusting the research and seeding at the optimum time.”
Research supports early seeding
Researcher Brian Beres has no doubts about recommending ultra-early seeding of wheat and durum as a reliable way to optimize and stabilize yields.
Beres says seeding as early as February and March, for example, may be something of a paradigm shift for western Canadian farmers — but he urges producers to be open to the idea of seeding earlier.
He urges producers to abandon the reliance on seeding by arbitrary calendar dates, in favour of being guided by the temperature in the top two inches of soil in a field. When conditions allow and the soil temperature finally warms above 0 C, it’s time to start seeding wheat.
Beres, a senior researcher specializing in agronomy, says AAFC has been conducting research on ultra-early seeding for spring wheat since 2014 at points as far north as Dawson Creek, down to Lethbridge and east to Saskatchewan research stations at Swift Current, Scott and Indian Head — which, combined, has “given us 40-plus site years of data.
“And we not only have proof of concept in all classes of spring wheat, but scale-up and adoption by growers is happening too. The concept has disrupted the mindset around when we should plant. This research shows we can go in and seed wheat and durum crops — at colder soil temperatures — much earlier than previously thought.”
The data also shows ultra-early seeding systems provide much greater yield stability than with conventional dates planted into warmer soils, he adds.
“Ultra-early seeding is a practice that produces more consistent yields over the years, and in many cases often produces superior yields,” he says. “That yield stability is often overlooked as an intangible, but it is a critically important benefit.”
Initially his four-year research project looked at spring wheat but more recently has also included ultra-early seeding of durum — and the findings for durum were very similar.
Beres plans to fine-tune recommendations to include durum varieties most suited to early seeding. He has selected popular varieties across a range of maturities, including CDC Defy, AAC Stronghold, AAC Donlow, AC Transcend and CDC Desire.
“The conventional thinking of many producers was that they were OK as long as they had seed in the ground before the crop insurance deadline,” says Beres, who has done a lot of work over the years with winter wheat agronomy.
“But as we planned this project, we felt perhaps there was an opportunity for farmers to be on the land earlier — not just prepping but actually planting.”
Research results
Ultra-early seeding research showed the optimum time to seed the crop is as soon as spring (or late winter) soil temperature reaches +2 C.
AAFC’s research, as well as research on irrigated sites carried out by the southern Alberta applied research association Farming Smarter, seeded plots at two-degree temperature increments, so seeding was done when soil temperatures reached 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 C. The earliest seeding date was Feb. 9.
Beres says the peak yield for wheat was 4.75 tonnes per acre, or about 70.5 bushels per acre, when seeded at +2 C. Yields dropped off at 4 C, 6 C and 8 C, to a low of 3.9 tonnes per hectare, or about 58 bushels per acre, at 10 C soil temperature. Durum showed a similar result.
Why?
The big question, then, is why wheat seeded so early would perform better than wheat seeded at a more conventional 10 C soil temperature.
There are probably a number of factors involved, including flower duration and grain fill, but Beres believes generally the concept produces benefits similar to a winter wheat crop.
The seed is in the ground and may sit there for some time, but as soon as it does germinate, it’s immediately able to take advantage of early spring moisture and nutrients. As it emerges, shoots take advantage of the energy of the sunlight.
“It is quickly building this photosynthetic machine that’s able to better capture and assimilate photosynthetic active radiation,” Beres says.
As part of the early seeding program, he recommends producers seed at higher seeding rates, and ensure seeds are treated with both a fungicide and insecticide. For the latter he recommends one of the neonicotinoid products as being the most effective.
“We found with previous research this combination of seed treatment alters metabolic pathways in plants such that they have much better resistance to abiotic stress factors resulting in significantly more plants in the field,” Beres says.
Abiotic stress factors are the negative effects from conditions such as high or low soil or ambient temperature, salinity, drought or flooding, or nutrient deficiency.
The ultra-early seeded crops are also more competitive against weeds, may disrupt pest cycles, and will also mature earlier and be in the bin sooner than conventionally seeded spring wheat.
Any adverse weather that materializes after the crop is seeded and emerges doesn’t appear to be an issue, Beres says.
“I grew up on a farm east of Lethbridge but I don’t think I have ever seen such crazy weather before compared to what we’ve experienced in the last couple years,” he says, referring to late-spring snowstorms that come and go, then come again, and even frost events with temperatures as low as –11 C “and this stuff was out there and did OK.”
And it’s not just Beres’ research plots telling the tale. He’s heard from several producers in south and central Alberta, including the Goulds as well as farmers in Saskatchewan who are adopting ultra-early seeding.
“It takes a bit of planning if you want to replace a pre-seed herbicide application with a soil residual in fall, but no modifications or capital costs are needed. It is also important to remember it may not work every year,” Beres says. “However, most producers are reporting their best crop ever due to ultra-early seeding.”
The ultra-early seeding trials with both wheat and durum crops are expected to continue in 2024. Farming Smarter plans to set up ultra-early seeding on irrigated sites this coming winter/spring.
