How to Stage Wheat: Growth Stage Feekes 6 and 7 (Zadoks 31 and 32)
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EmailApril 14, 2022
In this video, you will see how to dig a plant, dissect it and learn what to look for to stage wheat at Feekes 6 and 7.
Video Transcript
okay so when it comes to staging the
wheat you want to pull out an individual
plant and this particular plant has one
main stem and it's got one two and a
third tiller starting to come here right
there
stage your main stem so don't try to
stage the tillers so i'm just gonna
break these off here uh to get down here
now what you're looking for what you're
trying to feel for is these bumps or a
node in in the stem so just run your
your thumb and your forefinger up the
stem and you can feel a bump and when i
do that i can feel one right here and
then i feel a second one up here
but i don't feel a third one yet so i
have two nodes which means if i had just
one it would be peak six two nodes means
were at peak seven uh and the the where
the head is developing head is at in the
stem is up here at the top of the
uppermost node
so
we're gonna want to dissect this to
identify and find where that is at where
the developing head is
and we're just going to kind of finish
our staging discussion here so we're
going to strip these leaves back what
i'm looking for is the leaf that is
attached to this bottom node because
that will be considered leaf number one
and then there will be four leaves above
it the fourth leaf above it will be the
flag leaf which is the penultimate leaf
which is the last leaf out before the
head emerges
so if i strip this back this
leaf right here is attached to this note
so this is leaf one
this is leaf number two this is leaf
number three and then right there is
your flag leaf just starting to emerge
out of the world right here
so when we're staging this trying to
identify um damage uh for frost we want
to
slice this open so that we can expose
the head so i'm going to slice this open
on my leg here and then i'll explain
what we're seeing inside the the plant
or inside the stem
okay
so
i'll hold this stem open here
and down here at the bottom is our first
node right here
and then there's what this is what's
called the space in between these two
nodes right here is called our internode
space so this is node number two this is
what determines that this one is at
peaks eight or sorry feet seven um and
then the developing head is actually
pushed up right here and you can see the
little teeny tiny spikelets on that head