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This is a graph that shows the water use from planting
in the fall through ripening in the late spring or early summer. As
you would imagine, early in the fall a wheat plant doesn’t use much
water, of course it needs some water so it will grow. If you remember
last fall, I was worried about how dry it was, and the fact the plants
were not developing crown roots. So, it is important to have good fall
moisture. As the wheat greens-up in the spring, it uses more water and
during heading and flowering it reaches its maximum water use. After
the crop matures the water use falls to zero (that’s where we are
now in our field). |
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Based on the last graph, if a drought occurred, when do
you think it would do the most damage to the wheat crop? Well, if you
look at this graph, you can see that a drought at flowering would
result in the greatest yield loss (or the lowest yields). The later
the drought or water stress occurs during grain filling, the damage is
less severe. For example, there is more of a grain yield loss if the
drought occurs at the milk stage than at the soft dough or hard dough
stages. And finally, as the crop ripens there is little damage if a
drought occurs. |
