RITZVILLE SPRING WHEAT – 2005 WSU VARIETY TESTING DATA 

1.       2005 Spring Wheat data from the WSU Variety Testing nursery at the Ritzville location averaged 11.6, 12.1, and 12.2 bu/ac for soft white spring, hard white spring and hard red spring wheat, respectively.  The 2005 spring wheat average yields were over 60% below the historical 3-year average.  This nursery was planted with a no-till drill as re-crop following a 2004 winter wheat crop.  As we are finding in many of our re-crop spring wheat and spring barley nurseries, the spring 2005 environmental conditions (early season drought and cold soils), above average precipitation in May 2005 and dry soil conditions at the end of the growing season did not favor spring cereal crop development.  In many cases, root systems survived off May precipitation and did not develop very deep into the soil profile.  When moisture was needed at the end of the season for final growth and kernel development, the root systems were unable to provide sufficient moisture.  This can also be observed in low TEST WEIGHT values. There was also a series of root disease complexes that appeared in this nursery.

2.       Average PLANT HEIGHT in the 2005 nursery was 21.3 inches compared to an average plant height in the 2004 nursery of 28.3 inches. The reduced plant height is an indication of the impact of the 2005 growing conditions.

3.       The environmental conditions caused high levels of plot variations (CV %) particularly in the soft white and hard white nurseries in 2005.  In general, variety YIELD RANKINGS were similar to 3-year historical yield rankings, even though the yields were substantially lower in 2005. With high environmental variability in 2005, it is very important to look at historical yield performance for this nursery in making variety selections.