Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 19, 1994 TAG: 9407210031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID RESS RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His tests in the golden-brown field of wheat that McGhee would cut showed that the young Hanover farmer would be reaping more than 95 bushels of wheat an acre.
That's nearly three times the average yield Virginia farmers made as recently as a dozen years ago.
Without a lot of fanfare, wheat has become a major Virginia crop, as new techniques of fertilizing, planting seed and spacing rows, as well as new varieties of wheat, have taken hold. The grain that used to be little more than a winter cover crop to keep fields from eroding is now a profit center for many farmers.
The reason is simple: They can grow more of it on the same amount of land. And the price they get for their wheat, which is used mainly for animal feed, has held steady for years.
``It's like an auto company: If you've got to go through the process of making something anyway, you need to make and you need to sell as many as possible,'' McGhee said.
``This is my factory,'' he said, pointing at the acres of knee-high wheat.
McGhee, 28, is one of the hundreds of Virginia farmers who have been getting into intensive wheat management - the catch phrase that extension agents use for the new wheat-growing techniques.
``Our yields are up by about a third, we're getting about 70 bushels an acre,'' said Jimmy Riter, a Dinwiddie County farmer.
``It helps a lot. If you can increase yields over 60 bushels an acre, you can make a profit.''
The most widespread new technique that farmers like McGhee, Riter and hundreds of others across the state are trying is fertilizing their wheat more often, but each time with smaller amounts of nitrogen than they used to use.
The technique, called split dressing, tries to give the plants nitrogen at times when they are especially hungry for the nutrient.
Farmers used to top-dress, or spread, nitrogen on their wheat shortly after planting in the late fall; some would fertilize in February, as the plants were emerging from their winter dormancy.
By going to the field one more time, in late March or early April, when the wheat is growing and looking like a lush green lawn of foot-high grass, Virginia Tech crop scientist Dan Brann discovered the plants would produce more and heavier heads of grain.
Farmers also are using new varieties of wheat, many of which Brann and other Virginia Tech agronomists developed.
Many also are planting their rows of wheat closer together, and putting more seeds in each row. They're also spending more time in the field, scouting for signs of insects, disease or other trouble.
But there is a cost. The intensive techniques require more time than traditional methods do. Many farmers don't bother.
``Maybe other demands on their time prevents them, in peanut country, say, from wanting to do intensive management,'' Brann said. ``They'll work on peanuts or cotton instead, when that's making them $30 or $40 an hour for the time they spend doing it.
Alvin Blaha, who grows peanuts and is experimenting with cotton on his farm just outside Petersburg, still figures intensive management for wheat is worthwhile.
Split dressing adds to his costs and it adds to his aggravation as well.
But, he said, ``if you're going to grow it, you might as well try to make the most you can out of it.''
Blaha has boosted his wheat yields up to about 60 bushels an acre and is hoping to break 70 this year. Besides split-dressing his wheat, Blaha is planting more seeds per foot than he used to and he's been using new varieties developed at Virginia Tech.
The intensive techniques mean farmers spend more money, mainly to cover the cost of the extra trips to the field to fertilize the wheat and the extra nitrogen they use.
Virginia Cooperative Extension estimates that difference amounts to about $30 an acre.
But the payoff of increased yield reduces the average cost of producing a bushel of wheat. The extension service estimates that a farmer using intensive management techniques to produce 80 bushels of wheat incurs costs of about $1.95 a bushel, compared with an average cost for more traditional techniques of $2.28 a bushel. Those costs exclude machinery and land.
With red winter wheat selling for about $2.67 a bushel in Richmond and Petersburg, $2.85 to $2.90 in Tappahannock and $2.62 to $2.85 in Wakefield, margins are tight for all wheat farmers.
McGhee, in Hanover County, said he figures his costs come to $160 an acre. ``That includes everything: insurance, phone, all those business costs,'' he said.
He said he sold his crop this year - even the part that he's still harvesting - for about $3 a bushel.
At a yield of 95 bushels an acre, he's grossing $285 an acre; even at 80 bushels an acre, his gross would be $240 an acre - enough for a good profit.
by CNB