Now that wheat harvest is over, many growers have been pleasantly surprised with the yield numbers.

"For those of us in the university arena, the term "shocked" might be more appropriate," says Robert Bellm, University of Illinois Extension crop systems educator. "Although no records were set and there was a tremendous amount of field-to-field variability, the average yield obtained following early April freeze damage is pretty amazing."

Granted, the most seriously damaged fields were probably destroyed and replanted to another crop, and therefore were not factored into yield averages. However, in some U of I research trials, heavily damaged varieties recovered far better than expected, and the lowest yielding variety still averaged nearly 48 bushels per acre. One has to wonder what final yields could have been if the freeze damage had never occurred?

"This year shows that it is the weather in May and early June that has the greatest impact on wheat yield and quality," says Bellm. "Sunny, cool and dry conditions allowed the crop to survive and enabled secondary tillers to develop more fully than they normally would."

Although corn seems to be king these days, wheat still remains a viable and profitable crop. In fact, research looking at the net returns of different crop rotational systems indicates that a corn-soybean-wheat-doublecrop soybean rotation compares quite favorably to continuous corn rotations. As an added benefit, diversified crop rotations can minimize the negative impact of adverse weather, disease, or insect outbreaks compared to a mono-crop rotation.

For growers planning to include wheat in the rotation next year, variety information and yield results from University of Illinois' 2007 Wheat Performance Trials is now available online at http://vt.cropsci.uiuc.edu/. You can also visit the SI Agriculture website for results from the Ewing Demonstration Center in Southern Illinois, http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/regions/ag.