Mother Nature took a toll on Kansas winter wheat this season, with USDA rating the crop – at the harvest halfway mark earlier this week – at only 48% reaching good to excellent quality. Beyond inclement weather, it was a small, cigar-shaped pest – the wheat curl mite – that delivered one of the harshest yield blows to the crop this year, according to Romulo Lollato, wheat and forages Extension specialist, Kansas State University. The small pest is a vector of Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus, one of the most destructive wheat disease complexes in the U.S. and around the world. The disease complex can be caused by several viruses, including wheat streak mosaic virus, Triticum mosaic virus, and wheat mosaic virus (High Plains). The issue is widespread, well beyond Kansas. Other top wheat-producing states have the pest and WSMV, as well, including Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas. There are farm fields out here that got completely decimated, he says.
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