If you farm wheat commercially

There is an article making its way around the internet about wheat being sprayed with round up to make it dry faster for harvest.

I think the OP is trying to find out ifs its true.

Triple post

My wheat approaches 18 inches or more by December. The deer have some out back grazed to a few inches.

double post

Uncle!!!!

We live on the edge of one of the largest wheat growing areas in the world. One of our friends grows 2400 acres of wheat, some of which is seed wheat. He doesn't spray anything on his wheat before harvest. He doesn't spray anything that is not necessary. That is money right out of his pocket. Real farmers don't spray anything that is not really necessary, they do know how to do research and spraying chemicals that aren't needed can make the difference between profit and loss. Unless the spray can increase yield, it is a waste of money. If you want to learn more about your food, maybe you should learn how to do legitimate research. It is NOT repeating rumors that have no foundation in fact.

Lazy Js post is the only time I've heard of a farmer applying pesticides to wheat.

Round up is not a pesticide

Like anything, there are as many ways to grow wheat, as there are ways to feed a pig, ways to fence a pasture, etc.

We need to recognize that farming wheat, or anything else, is not a government run thing where we all have to do the same thing. The article acts as though if you grow wheat, you are obviously doing pre-harvest glyphosate applications.

Just because I have sheep, does that mean I have a donkey? Have page wire fences? Lose them to coyotes? Raise Suffolks? Flush them with grain?

Thankfully it is not a one size fits all career. Some do, most do not.

But again, if you look at the article, and trust it when it says farmers do this to grow more seeds, which is absolutely, horrendously, amazingly false, a person must decide and wonder how much of the article is actually true.

Again, I appreciate the question, because it gives we farmers a chance to share the truth.

Cheers,

Dale

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I have never seen the wheat here being sprayed.

Nobody sprays growing wheat for weeds. They plant it thick enough that the weeds cant get a start and grow before the wheat overtakes them.
In the series Victorian Farm, They didn't know how to sow wheat and sowed it too thin. The weds and grass did come up through it, and made it hard for the binder to do its job. One reason for that is that they didn't raise the binders cutter bar high enough to go above the weeds. They wanted the long straw for bedding.
You couldn't spray wheat or oats anyway after it was up and heading out without a plane, as NOBODy wants to track tractors and applicators through fields of growing wheat.
NOBODY fertilized wheat/oat ground when I was growing up. EVERYBODY round I knew bout used steel wheel wood box drills, like I have and just sowed it. My granddads 1/2 brother used a wheel barrow seeder for the same purpose. After I was gone from there, I imagine farmers started granular fertilizing wheat ground, as they were making grain drills more and more with a fertilizer box attached to it. A farmer could do both at the same time.

Actually, yes, especially in spring wheat, it is indeed sprayed for weeds a couple weeks after emergence. And there is a fair enough amount in these northern growing areas that spray their wheat prior to harvest to control perennial weeds, as the timing is the best for one time, good control for some guys. In winter wheat, sometimes you need to clean out the winter annuals which are very competetive, and so it may get a shot of broadleaf herby in the fall.

That being said, it depends on your weed spectrum. I personally do not spray pre-harvest, because I find it completely un-necessary. But some certainly do.

I do spray shortly after emergence, because if I did not, weeds would grow and compete with my crop, lowering yields by 10 to 30 %. Also, even if the weeds are not very competetive, there is the seed back issue. You do not want to let a bunch of weeds seed out for decades to come, so you try to keep the crop clean. Slowly over time, the weed seed bank does get lower, and one can start skipping apps, or using less intense herbys as time goes on, and control has been consistent.

Once the wheat gets to be past the 4 leaf stage, and the weeds are removed, nothing can really compete enough to harm it. Indeed, not much germinates even, because by then the wheat is shading the ground, and controlling weeds all on its own.

No. There are VERY rare circumstances where it could be deemed neccesary, but if it's part of the original plan, you're doing something wrong.

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Well, I think pesticides are sprays that control all types of pest.

Herbicides, insecticides, fungicides all are pesticides, including weed killers like Roundup.

Spraying a weed killer at the time of harvest as a desiccant is rather uncommon in wheat, I would say it does happen in a rescue mode, but not as a common thing or on very many acres. Wheat tends to dry down naturally on its own quite well, and it tends to be planted in dry climates where weeds don't do well in fall harvest time, so most wheat would not need it and doesn't receive it.

Sunflowers are more likely sprayed with a desiccant from what I hear. They mature unevenly some years, and need to get dried down uniformly before winter comes to their growing areas. Even this is rare, but somewhat more likely.

Neither wheat nor sunflowers are real common 'here' tho a little wheat is grown in the neighborhood. I've never heard of corn being sprayed with a desiccant, and only very very very rarely soybeans.

Groxamone is just as likely to be used as a desiccant, I believe.

Paul

Welp, I sit corrected lol

Only time I have seen Wheat sprayed is after it was ground into Flour in a Bakery, then they sprayed Bin and Augers not the Flour. it was sifted.

Worked as a Seedsman in Commercial Seed Plant, sprayed Seed and Gassed it regularly.

Growing Wheat never sprayed it or, Soy Beans, Barley, Oats or Corn.

big rockpile

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This is written by a Kansas wheat farmer. He does a better job than I can at writing and gives permission to use his words.



"Spraying Roundup on wheat is extremely uncommon where we are from. I would guess the percentage of wheat harvested like this in Kansas (the top wheat producing state) is less than 1%. For this author to say it is "common practice" is ridiculous. (There are places where it is more common, check the comments below) In my entire life we've done that once and that was when the option was to spray one of our fields or lose the crop completely. Even then, it is illegal to harvest that soon after spraying, you have to give it several weeks and the spray will wear off, break down, and no longer be effective. On top of that, none of the spray gets on the seed anyway, and the amount sprayed is very miniscule (.2 gal/acre). I could go on and on about all the inaccuracies, but the bottom line is that articles like these are based on an agenda to remove modern, conventional agriculture that provides cheap, abundant food and replace it with organic, heavy labor driven food production that can only be afforded by the wealthy. If that's the direction certain people want to go, that's fine, but let's use facts and truth to make points, not blatant mistruths. There is room for both organic and conventional agriculture, but we should not be trying to get rid of either one, as only a select group of people can afford that. It is quite frustrating as a farmer to be accused of providing anything but safe and healthy food. If we knew that we weren't, we would change our methods." - Greg Peterson

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It would have to be a salvage operation due to weeds to justify spraying wheat before harvest, Then you would have spraying cost and loss of crop value due to deterioration because of weather, guaranteed to rain or worse while you wait out the withdrawal period for the herbicide you used.

Pesticides are to kill insects. Herbicides are to kill weeds.

We have never sprayed pesticides on our wheat during anytime of their growth.

Certain herbicides can be sprayed on wheat when it is young but only certain herbicides. And we don't spray our wheat with herbicides anytime during their growth. If we have a weedy spot in the wheat, we combine around it, and don't harvest that spot.

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