Soil: Dark brown loam, which holds 1.5 inches of available water per foot of moist (field capacity) soil. Completely recharged at seeding on May 13, 2013.

Rain: May, 1.7 inches; June, 4.6 inches; July 6, 1.6 inches; July 21-24, one inch in small bits. No rain after July 24, but with that rain distribution, the crop did not dry the soil to a great depth.

The crop was combined Aug. 25, with peas yielding 55 bushels per acre. The surface soil was so dry it could not be probed.

Aug. 31 saw half an inch of rain but conditions were so hot and dry it was gone in a few days. A fall anhydrous application is likely not possible.

The farm on Sept. 25-26 received 2.25 inches of nice slow rain with no gully washers; it all soaked in.

On Sept. 29, following the recent rains, the wetting front — the line between the layer of wet soil below the surface and the drier soil beneath that layer — was measured at 18 inches down, exactly as the theory predicted.

Soil moisture profile, Sept. 29

The bottom line

There are only approximately 10 inches of soil to be wet up and the profile is completely recharged. Any amount of further rain or snow melt will do the job. There is a very good chance that the soil will be fully recharged for the 2014 crop. I plan to put on 80 to 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre, as soon as I can line up anhydrous.

So, if your agronomist is moisture-probing the soil in your fields this fall, make sure he or she checks for residual soil moisture below the dry layer.

— Les Henry, a contributing columnist for Grainews and a retired soil science professor, farms and writes in the Saskatoon area.

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It took me a while to figure out what was going on; I now know that these diseases are widespread in the Saskatoon area.

While I am a dirt-digging soil scientist and farmer, not a plant pathologist, I think the disease shown in the photo of a neighbour’s Carberry wheat is aster yellows (it hasn’t yet been confirmed by lab tests).

Yes, aster yellows can be a wheat disease, and doesn’t just impact canola. Aster yellows is not a fungus — there is no spray solution. To scout for aster yellows in wheat, look for a white head, with little or no seed. The flag leaf will be curled, with little left, or it may be gone. The stem will still be green in the early stages.

It’s easy to confuse aster yellows with fusarium head blight. All farmers know about FHB and what it can mean, especially in Manitoba. The thought of augering a wheat crop into the bush turns the stomach of any wheat grower. If you have head blight, the heads (or parts of the heads) will be white, but the flag leaf will still be intact, and the plant will still be green.

— Les Henry, a contributing columnist for Grainews and a retired soil science professor, farms and writes in the Saskatoon area.

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