Information Provided During Dryland Field Day In Sidney

A wide variety of topics were covered during the dryland field day presented by the Sidney ARS and MSU EARC on Friday.

Phil Bruckner, professor/wheat breeder from MSU Bozeman, presented the feature presentation on the EARC stops by discussing varieties of winter wheat.

Bruckner said that officials expect to see high levels of winter kills at the locations in Sidney and Williston.

"It's good for a research standpoint, but not so good if you're growing wheat," Bruckner said.

He notes varieties come from a variety of locations including Colorado and the Pacific West. "Some aren't hearty enough to flourish here," Bruckner explained.

He listed the top varieties in the area during the last year. Top seed varieties included Jerry, CDC Falcon, Decade, Yellåwstone, Northern, Colter and Broadview.

Bruckner said new winter wheat varieties being studied by MSU include Northern and Lola. "The northern is more similar to Yellowstone as far as appearance and expectations," Bruckner said. "I think it has a lot of potential."

The EARC stops also included Frankie Crutcher discussing his research interests, Sherry Turner providing an orange blossom wheat midge trapping update, Chengci Chen talking about herbicide residuals affecting pulse crop germination and growth and Yesuf Mohammed and Reza Keshavarze Afshar discussing macro- and micro-nutrients study for cereal and pulse crops.

The ARS stops featured Extension agent Tim Fine talking about weed identification and Marestail control, Roger Ashley providing a cross slot drill demonstration, Brett Allen discussing warm season legumes, a national oilseeds project and diversified cereals with pulses and oilseeds study, Jay Jabro talking about water use efficiency and Natalie West discussing a cooperative model for preventing resistant weed invasions.