LANSING, Mich. — Results of 2014 wheat variety trials performed by Michigan State University (MSU) wheat experts have been released.

MSU wheat experts have planted wheat variety trial plots for more than 15 years; however, this is only the second year wheat trials in all of the counties involved were grown under a high management system. The high management component began in 2012, when the board of the Michigan Wheat Program (MWP), the industry’s checkoff organization, approached MSU about including this component in their variety trials.

For these trials, wheat experts Eric Olson and Lee Siler had plots at six locations.

Last summer’s plantings were seriously challenged by the bad winter, and the Sanilac and Lenawee County sites had to be abandoned this spring because of severe water and ice damage.

"Once again, we farmers can appreciate the diversity of the trial farm locations because we never know what kind of weather Mother Nature is going to send our way," David Milligan, MWP chairman and wheat farmer from Cass City, said in a statement. "This past year was another example, as none of us expected the crop to be under ice and snow as it was this past winter. It just goes to show you the resiliency of our wheat and the fact that we still had a decent crop."

High management practice consists of an additional split nitrogen application adding 40 pounds of liquid 28 percent nitrogen per acre, an application of Quilt fungicide for early season diseases and an application of Prosaro at flowering to control late season fungal diseases. All plots in a county were harvested on the same day and evaluated for such factors as test weight, grain moisture, flowering date, plant height, milling quality, pre-harvest sprouting, disease susceptibility and other attributes.

With the abandonment of the Lenawee and Sanilac counties plots, the four high management sites had anywhere from 84.3 bushels per acre, in Ingham County, to 92.9 bushels per acre, in Tuscola County. The conventional plot had 71 bushels per acre. In 2013, some high management plots had 18 percent greater yields per acre than conventional plots at the same location.

"It’s good now that high management has been added to the trials because it’s very much what the growers are doing," said Jody Pollok-Newsom, executive director of the Michigan Wheat Program. "It’s good to see how the varieties respond under different conditions, given that last year was kind of a normal year."

The full trial included 90 entries, of which 22 were experimental lines. The varieties are from 20 organizations, and data analyses were conducted using all of the entries. For ease of viewing, two versions of the report are available. The commercial only version, available online and in Michigan Farm News, includes the data of 68 commercially available varieties from 17 organizations only. The "including experimentals" version is available online exclusively. It includes all 90 commercial and experimental lines.

To view either the commercial version or experimental version of the report, go to www.miwheat.org