WHEAT FARMING The farmer sows his wheat broadcast, by hand, if he is old-fashioned and skilful, and has a small field; otherwise with some kind of drill, or seeder, that plants a large area more evenly and more quickly that can be done by hand. The ground must be a deep, well-drained, rich, clay loam, mellow and free from weeds, if a good crop is to follow. Next to the sowing comes the har rowing, unless the seeding is done by a press drill, that puts the grains underground at least an inch. The harrow kills weeds, breaks up the surface crust and covers the seed. The newest tool, the press drill, does all these operations at once: seed ing, covering, and smoothing the bare ground over the seed.
If weather is fair and warm, the wheat field shows its green spears at the end of the second week after sowing. Soon the bare ground has turned green as a lawn. One long leaf at each joint of the stem is the rule with the wheat plant, and that leaf in two sections: the lower half clasps the stalk; the upper half extends outward, expos ing its flat surface to the sun. This is the part that waves in the breezes. Many people would overlook the tubular part that strengthens the stalk, and only serves its leaf function by exposing the green under surface to the sun. When wind lashes the standing grain the leaves swing around without breaking, because the basal half of each is tough-fibred and takes a spiral twist around the stem. This saves the leaves in many a storm from being whipped off.
The swollen joints, too, save the wheat that gets "lodged" by wind. Strangely enough, the swelling of the base of the leaf-sheath on the side that has bent over lifts the stem toward the erect position. All the leaf bases help, and the plant soon stands vertical again. These bases remain soft even when the leaf is getting yellow. The effort to lift fallen grain is not so successful, after the stalks are ripe.
One of the peculiar habits of the wheat plant is " tillering." The stem that first comes up from each grain of seed that sprouts is quickly joined by shoots that rise from joints underground.
Three main roots strike downward from the chit as the plumule, or stem, shoots upward toward the light. But the " crown " of the wheat plant is higher than the seed, which is not lifted up in sprouting, as beans are. A group of much stronger roots strike down from the first joints of the parent stem, and the "tillers," or secondary stems, rise around their parent, forming a "stool." The thinner the sowing, the better chance for these side shoots to multiply; and the deeper the grain is planted, the more joints of the original stem will be covered with soil and able to "stool," sending roots down and stems up.
The best wheat plant is the one with the greatest number of strong stalks. In the average field the number of stalks from a single seed is from six to twelve. Exceptional plants have three to four dozen stalks. The plants from feeble seed may have but two or three feeble stalks. So the farmer who sows poor seed is wasting time and labor.
When the wheat stalks are full-grown they blossom in long spikes or heads, made up of " spike lets " (side branches), each with a few flowers, and enclosed in papery coverings, called outer glumes. These glumes are set alternately upon the stem. Each pair of glumes opens at flowering time, exposing one to four pairs of smaller, more delicate glumes each one a wheat blossom in the bud. The smaller glume is the palet; it lies next to the stem. The larger one may have a long, rough spine that protrudes an inch or more. Such wheat is a "bearded" variety. Between the palet and this outer flowering glume is the ovary, containing the plump ovule, with two plume-like branches of the stigma held above it. On the sides stand the three stamens, that hang out their large anthers on slender filaments when the glumes part for the wind to do its work of carrying pollen from open ing anthers to waiting stigmas. To some extent, wheat flowers are pollenated within the bud. But the wind does the cross-pollenating, which makes more vigorous, larger grains than self pollenation.
A "head" of wheat, three or four inches long, may have fifteen to twenty spikelets filled out, and a few that failed and dried away. Each spikelet had from one to four flowers; so two or three grains of wheat may be the average in each spikelet. Counting them all, the head may yield thirty to fifty grains of wheat. Now count the heads borne by the single plant, and how many grains are the harvest of a single seed sowed? Three or four hundred grains are possible, but not usual.
Five pecks to an acre is the average amount of wheat sown in the United States. "In ten years, one grain of North Dakota wheat produced 300,000 bushels." The average yield per acre in the United States is about thirteen bushels. In the Northwest, sixty and seventy bushels an acre are not uncommon. A thousand-acre field that yielded 51,000 bushels holds the record for a field of that size. Germany and England average more than twice the yield of American wheat fields. Older fields, but better tillage and more fertilizers put upon the land, make the difference. Better farming is increasing the yield of crops, but wheat farming has been one of the worst robbers of the virgin soil of our coun try.