Proper No-till Wheat Seeding Rates

Keith Balderson (thbalder@vt.edu), Extension Agent, Crop & Soil Sciences, Essex County

With the adoption of no-tillage wheat, wheat seeding rates have increased in comparison to conventional tillage methods.  In some cases, producers are seeding 3 bushels per acre or more.  What are the optimum seeding rates for no-tillage wheat?

First, remember to plant seed according to seeds per row foot or seeds per acre rather than pounds per acre.  A harvest goal for wheat is 60-70 heads per square foot with an average of 30 seeds per head.  Seventy heads per square foot is just over 3 million heads per acre!  So, how many emerged plants does it take to get 3 million heads of wheat per acre?

Timely planted wheat should produce 2 to 3 heads per emerged plant so a good goal is to have 1.2 million emerged plants per acre.  This equates to about 27 emerged plants per square foot.  Planting seed with a germination of 85% or higher at 4-5 miles per hour at 1-1.5 inches deep should allow you to get 70% emergence. Thus, a seeding rate of 38 seeds per square foot should be adequate to achieve this goal.  For producers planting in 7.5 inch rows this is about 24 seeds per row foot and for 7 inch rows the rate would be 22 seeds per row foot.  For a seed lot with 13,000 seeds per pound this would work out to 2 bushels per acre and for a seed lot with 11,000 seeds per pound you would need to seed just over 2.25 bushels per acre. Use Table 1 to approximate the seeds per row foot to achieve the targeted seeds/sq. ft.  at various row widths.

Purchasing high quality seed of high yielding varieties is an important component of wheat production, but good seed is not cheap.  Fifty pound units of some varieties sold for as much as $18 per unit last fall so over planting by a half bushel per acre could increase seed expense over $10 per acre.  Take time to calibrate your planting equipment to plant seeds per row foot or seeds per acre.  The following table provides more information on seeding rates.