Effect of traditional and intensive management on soft red winter wheat yield and profitability

Abstract

Some farmers regard wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) as a low-input crop, whereas other farmers intensively manage wheat with many inputs, such as multiple foliar fungicide applications, S fertilizer, and split applications of N. This research aimed to identify the management practices that improve the yield and profitability of wheat grain and straw. An incomplete factorial omission trial was established at two locations in Ohio [the Western Agricultural Research Station (WARS) and Northwest Agricultural Research Station (NWARS)] during the 2020 and 2021 growing seasons. The tested management practices included a high seeding rate, a high N rate, a split application of N, a spring S application, a fungicide application at Feekes 9, and a fungicide application at Feekes 10.5.1. The treatments were intensive management (IM) (all tested management practices), traditional management (TM) (none of the tested management practices), and treatments consisting of the individual addition of each practice to TM or removal from the IM system. The IM increased grain yield at three of the four site-years by an average of 0.83 Mg ha−1 but did not increase the partial economic return at any site-year during this study. Individual treatment effects were rare and inconsistent. These results suggest that although IM can improve grain yield, it failed to do so economically at the grain prices and input costs used in this study. Farmers should use crop scouting techniques and disease forecasting tools to identify wheat fields that are likely to benefit from additional inputs such as fertilizer or foliar fungicide.