Producers might want to use earliness to FHS as a variety selection criterion. Those interested in grain only may want to avoid earliness to FHS to reduce the potential of damage from late freezes. Producers interested in trying to maximize return per acre of dual-purpose wheat would like to graze cattle as late into the spring as possible and still maintain grain yield. Since it has been identified that FHS is the optimum time to pull cattle, more days of grazing could be obtained with varieties reaching FHS late.

Data has been collected for five years comparing varieties and we have found that there are differences in when varieties reach FHS just as there are differences in when wheat varieties head. However, there is no relationship between how early a variety reaches FHS and how early it heads. The following table categorizes the wheat varieties we have evaluated. On the average over this five-year period, there have been 22 days from the time the earliest variety reached FHS until the latest did.

Wheat Varieties Categorized for Earliness of Heading
Southwest Oklahoma 2000

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