Post by farmermike on May 27, 2017 17:10:23 GMT -5
In fall 2015, I planted a little test row of Baart wheat, and had no problems with it whatsoever. It was only about a 15 foot row, that I planted in late October, and it ripened to a golden straw color in early June after some hot dry weather. The patch was too small to provide much food, but I got a good seed increase.
So, last fall (2016) I planted a little bit bigger patch -- about 70 row feet at my ranch, and 30 row feet in my backyard. Everything was going fine through most of the winter. We received about double our normal rainfall, and the wheat thrived while other overwintering crops were rotting in the flooded fields. Then in April it started to flower and form heads. Around mid-May, I decided it only needed a few more weeks to ripen, and began to make plans to harvest and thresh the seeds. About a week after that it had been pretty much devastated by rodents -- almost overnight. I did an emergency harvest, but mostly just to deprived the pests of the remainder. I have a few sheaves hanging to dry now, but I'm pretty sure the seeds are mostly immature.
Here's what the damage looked like. Many of the heads were snipped off with the stalk left standing.
Many stalks were also bent down to the ground and the head snipped off.
I assume the culprits are some combination of gophers, voles, rats, and/or mice. Is there anything I can do to protect my grains in the future?
This does seem to be a bumper year for rats and mice -- maybe because of the wet winter. Maybe I just need to do major preemptive trapping campaign right before the grains begin to ripen, to at least reduce the level of damage. I assume I will always have some rodent predation of grains.
I really would love to keep growing wheat, because it is one of the few crops I can get away with never watering (or maybe just a little water to get it sprouted in our driest drought years). Right now I am debating whether to even try again next year.
Any suggestions/commiseration would be most welcome! I suppose I also need to just read a book on the subject.
So, last fall (2016) I planted a little bit bigger patch -- about 70 row feet at my ranch, and 30 row feet in my backyard. Everything was going fine through most of the winter. We received about double our normal rainfall, and the wheat thrived while other overwintering crops were rotting in the flooded fields. Then in April it started to flower and form heads. Around mid-May, I decided it only needed a few more weeks to ripen, and began to make plans to harvest and thresh the seeds. About a week after that it had been pretty much devastated by rodents -- almost overnight. I did an emergency harvest, but mostly just to deprived the pests of the remainder. I have a few sheaves hanging to dry now, but I'm pretty sure the seeds are mostly immature.
Here's what the damage looked like. Many of the heads were snipped off with the stalk left standing.
Many stalks were also bent down to the ground and the head snipped off.
I assume the culprits are some combination of gophers, voles, rats, and/or mice. Is there anything I can do to protect my grains in the future?
This does seem to be a bumper year for rats and mice -- maybe because of the wet winter. Maybe I just need to do major preemptive trapping campaign right before the grains begin to ripen, to at least reduce the level of damage. I assume I will always have some rodent predation of grains.
I really would love to keep growing wheat, because it is one of the few crops I can get away with never watering (or maybe just a little water to get it sprouted in our driest drought years). Right now I am debating whether to even try again next year.
Any suggestions/commiseration would be most welcome! I suppose I also need to just read a book on the subject.