Think your winter wheat is dead, maybe not. Here's how to tell for sure

Last week I had an opportunity to participate in a webinar hosted by NDSU, Ducks Unlimited and a few other organizations. The emphasis of the webinar was looking at winter wheat and making management decisions based on survival. A few producers have questioned whether our lack of winter and snow cover has caused winter wheat to suffer winter kill. My initial reaction was that we probably did have some significant amounts of winter kill but I'm not so sure now.

One way to know for sure whether or not your wheat crop is lost is to perform the "bag test". Here is a link to a video that shows exactly how to do it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soCj2OsLJ_w&feature=youtu.be) and also describes how to determine whether or not your wheat has survived.

I would encourage you to perform the test, especially if you have significant areas of your field that appear to be dead, before making any decisions regarding tearing up the crop or trying to inter-seed a spring wheat crop into it.

I am more than happy to help with the test if needed.