What makes a Winter Wheat?
Wheat is any wheat, and for most of us all types of wheat are one and the same. However, there is a substantial difference between spring and winter wheat. Both of these wheats may share similar characteristics, but they are still different. Winter wheat is so called because it can weather harsh freezing temperatures for extended periods of time when it is in the early vegetative stage. Winter wheat is actually exposed to such freezing temperatures to trigger the reproductive stage. In a nutshell, winter wheat will not produce seed if it doesn’t go through such freezing weather. Winter wheat need two things to perform optimally and produce better yields – cold acclimatization and vernalization. Let us see both of these in detail here. The newly emerged winter wheat seedlings in Southern Alberta is not very different from the spring wheat seedlings. It is just that in order to make the winter wheat survive in freezing temperatures, it should be exposed to cooler temperatures early in i...