How important is vernalisation??

[Bogweevil]

I think Australian wheats are spring wheat derived from Indian wheat after European winter wheats yielded poorly due to lack of vernalisation and with the wrong daylength requirements. Flowering in UK WW is controlled by day length and chilling.

However recent developments are producing winter wheats for Aus that need some chilling but are insensitive to daylength. This is to get slightly earlier flowering to avoid flowering in the hotter weather experienced in Aus due to climate change.

 

[cricketandcrops]

I’ve seen trials where winter wheat was drilled in March and yield around 2 t/ha than spring wheat, it produced an ear but lots of blind sites and also what grain was there was crap

Not scientific and I ain’t a scientist but that’s what I saw

 

[Flat 10]

I think Australian wheats are spring wheat derived from Indian wheat after European winter wheats yielded poorly due to lack of vernalisation and with the wrong daylength requirements. Flowering in UK WW is controlled by day length and chilling.

However recent developments are producing winter wheats for Aus that need some chilling but are insensitive to daylength. This is to get slightly earlier flowering to avoid flowering in the hotter weather experienced in Aus due to climate change.

Very interesting

 

[Bury the Trash]

I now a farmer that sow springwheat in September many years ago. It was a good wheatcrop next year ! It was homesaved seed and he think it was WW .
In Sweden.

Sw 's 'governor ' is just daylength and temperature ie. Increasing ..... so in the case you mention it shows that that sw didnt race away through the stages because obviously the days were getting shorter and cooler and yet the plant had time to establish a safe amount of root and leaf. ......bit lucky with a tough variety tho I guess. And maybe there wasnt quite as many and as hard frosts that year

but it Does sound like even some sw can be enhanced by Vernalisation.




From Page 32 of that pdf describes quite well the Australian (South Eastern anyway.)
The use of legumes (medics etc) as recover or in a covered type fallow and eating off ( on mixed farms or where stock (sheep) are agitisted in from stock farms needing the feed ) ww before allowing go on to harvest is mention, there been doing that for donkeys years it seems not much has changed their strategy
Like varieties, or at least advice anyway here , has warned against us grazing off most modern early sown grain crops even very thick proud ones , especially in a mild soft winter .
( also would need to be relativly dry ground conditions like they get)

Oops I've rambled on....

 

[Selectamatic]

I’ve heard it said that there is no difference in oats, in other words, there is just oat seed, no difference between spring and winter.

Is this true?

 

[richard hammond]

If my agronomist was asking this I’d be a bit concerned to say the least!
Of cause vernalisation is vital, if you want to harvest a crop from a winter cereal variety.
Latest safe sowing dates are best guesses to make sure 99.9% of crops would actually vernalise in a warm spring if sown at that time. How far back you can actually push it in any given year is something only the plant can tell you after the event.

Does it hurt to question things?? obviously in your opinion it is wrong, then you go on to talk about best guesses!!

 

[B'o'B]

Does it hurt to question things?? obviously in your opinion it is wrong, then you go on to talk about best guesses!!

It’s pretty basic plant physiology and yet you as an agronomist questioned if it was important. You may as well have asked if it is important to harvest your crops!
I would expect someone I was paying for agronomic advice to have a grasp of it’s importance. Maybe you were asking a different question to the one you wrote?

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

I’ve heard it said that there is no difference in oats, in other words, there is just oat seed, no difference between spring and winter.

Is this true?

I think some oat varieties are just more likely to survive a very cold winter than others.

 

[CORK]

I think some oat varieties are just more likely to survive a very cold winter than others.

Exactly

Over here,95% of oat varieties are spring types but we plant half the area in the autumn.
The spring types when autumn sown generally out yield the winter types but are more susceptible to cold damage as they get more advanced.
The winter types develop more slowly.

Winter barley has a small vernalisation requirement but has a requirement all the same.

 

[Bury the Trash]

also there's an optimal balance between being established well enough to cope with frosts and too much vegetative growth to be desiccated by it .

question is how has/will climate change effect all this.

 

[Hampton]

It’s pretty basic plant physiology and yet you as an agronomist questioned if it was important. You may as well have asked if it is important to harvest your crops!
I would expect someone I was paying for agronomic advice to have a grasp of it’s importance. Maybe you were asking a different question to the one you wrote?

I think he is probably asking in relation to modern varieties rather than just in general. It is possible that modern varieties are less reliant on vernalisation, it just appears that no one has done any work on it to back it up

 

[Bury the Trash]

I’ve heard it said that there is no difference in oats, in other words, there is just oat seed, no difference between spring and winter.

Is this true?

some winter o varieties do need it but i think not so much as WW in comparison so it might not be a total disaster,ie you would get some yield but not as good as if it had had a proper vernalisation type temperature period .

we put Canyon SO in at the end of October once and it did well, didn't use pgr tho that time and it got quite big

 

[B'o'B]

I think he is probably asking in relation to modern varieties rather than just in general. It is possible that modern varieties are less reliant on vernalisation, it just appears that no one has done any work on it to back it up

NIAB have always had vernalisation plots every time I’ve been there.

 

[Dukes Fit]

From what I’ve read in the past, it is very much to do with the differences between the genetics of the differing variety’s.
All true “winter” varieties do require the vernalisation process, but some are shorter than others and require less of a temperature difference to do so. Some of the varieties that require a longer “dormancy” period then thrive a lot faster in the catch up period.

So I’d say vernalisation is very important as without it WW would fail, it’s just a question of the time scale and temperatures in relation to the variety.

 

[Bury the Trash]

It’s pretty basic plant physiology and yet you as an agronomist questioned if it was important. You may as well have asked if it is important to harvest your crops!
I would expect someone I was paying for agronomic advice to have a grasp of it’s importance. Maybe you were asking a different question to the one you wrote?

Possibly hes not been 'right' since that bang on the head.

 

[Lincsman]

Someone must be doing some testing to state skyfall is better than others... who is it though?

 

[Bignor Farmer]

A few years ago I planted a field of Skyfall in late March because we messed around with fencing and ditching in the autumn and got caught out by the weather. I knew it was a risk but decided to take the chance.

It came up well, tillered like crazy, got to GS31ish, had a robust T1, 3 weeks later was still at T1, 6 weeks later was still at T1, got flailed!

I’ve got about 500ac due for winter wheat currently unplanted, it’s going into barley.

 

[Brisel]

As the title says is this as important as we are told by the scientists? if so how does Australia and other hot climate countries grow W Wheat.?? or are ALL their varieties only Spring Wheat. If so we all ought to grow a small area of Spring Wheat to cover our backs for HSS as this situation may occur in future years ..

This has been answered well above, but yes, WW needs vernalisation. The published "latest safe sowing date" for a variety is a backside covering exercise & most varieties will be ok if sown later IF THEY GET THE REQUIRED TEMPERATURES AND TIME PERIOD AFTER GERMINATING. As you go later, the risk of that not happening gets far greater & your backside is the one exposed if the crop then doesn't produce seed heads. Lots of March sown winter wheat in 2013 did ok but we did have frosts in April. Also as mentioned above different varieties have differing levels of vernalisation requirement. You also wouldn't want to sow a slow developing variety like Diego in March.

Since Australia got mentioned, they have frosts in June/July in NSW where I worked, so they would have all vernalised ok. It was strange to have 25 oC in the day yet frost on the grass when I got up in the mornings.

 

[Hindsight]

Someone must be doing some testing to state skyfall is better than others... who is it though?

My comments here are anecdotal, so treat them as such.

The breeder during development will have small scale plot trials with differential sowing dates. I seem to recall some limited replication occurs at some AHDB recommended list sites.

For most years the broad allocation of a variety into on of the three Recommended list categories is perfectly sufficient. End Jan, Mid Feb, End Feb. In this exceptional year we are asking more of it. As the Recommended list is a national list it covers all latitudes and altitudes thus weather in England and Wales.

If you are interested or need to know then speak with a specific breeders technical staff. They are approachable in my experience and have explained what data they have.

 

[Buggerallbandwidth]

I now a farmer that sow springwheat in September many years ago. It was a good wheatcrop next year ! It was homesaved seed and he think it was WW .
In Sweden.

Spring wheat varieties are so called because they do not require vernalisation to produce a flower (and hence seed). They can withstand low temperatures to a point, but may suffer in a very cold winter. Spring wheat varieties are often sown in late autumn in the UK. Helps takes care of our three crop rule.