Causes of White Heads in Wheat and the Latest Control Methods

When wheat is nearing maturity, large numbers of white heads often appear, causing a serious drop in yield, and many farmers do not know what causes this. The causes of white heads in wheat include diseases as well as environmental and human factors. Let's take a look at the detailed introduction below.

1. Diseases

There are many disease-related causes of white heads in wheat, generally caused by wheat take-all, wheat root rot, wheat sheath blight, and wheat sheath blight. When take-all occurs, the wheat is short and stunted with many yellow leaves and blackened roots; if infected during the grain-filling stage, the crown and stem gradually turn black, and eventually the whole plant dies, resulting in white heads. When root rot occurs, dark brown spindle-shaped spots or streaks appear on the leaves and stem base, and ultimately the root system rots and the plant dies, producing white heads. The symptoms of sheath blight are similar to those of root rot; brown lesions appear, and as the lesions gradually expand and cover the entire stem, in severe cases the stem base rots, causing the plant to die and producing white heads. Fusarium head blight mainly occurs during the flowering and grain-filling stages, and is more severe in rainy, overcast weather.

2. Low-temperature freezing injury

Wheat plants today are generally spring wheat and winter wheat, and both experience cold seasons during cultivation. If temperatures are too low, the plants suffer freezing injury, and in non-cold-hardy varieties the tillers and growing points freeze to death, causing the spikelets to develop incompletely so that grains cannot form, resulting in empty heads and finally large areas of white heads at maturity.

3. Insect pests

Like diseases, insect pests are one of the causes of white heads in the later stages of wheat. As productivity increases, traditional cultivation is gradually replaced by mechanization, and unscientific pest and disease control measures cause pest damage to worsen year by year. After being damaged by insect pests, wheat often shows dead seedlings and stunted seedlings at the seedling stage, and combined with greater climate variability, this often leads to dead seedlings early on and dead heads later.

Mechanized farming patterns are gradually replacing traditional planting patterns. During planting, human or mechanical factors may injure the wheat stems, so that they cannot absorb and transport nutrients normally as they grow, and the plants are also prone to water loss, resulting in white heads.

5. Control measures

Great importance must be attached to the control of pests and diseases. Reasonable crop rotation should be practiced at planting time to reduce sources of pathogens and insects and to keep plants growing vigorously. In addition, strengthen fertilizer and water management during cultivation, apply more organic fertilizer and increase phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, to improve the plants' disease resistance, and deal promptly with any pest or disease damage found. Choose relatively cold-hardy varieties to withstand losses caused by low temperatures.

The above are the causes of white heads in wheat and the control methods. We hope this helps you. To learn more about wheat cultivation, please stay tuned to us.