How to Grow Winter Wheat for High Quality and High Yield? A Detailed Guide to Cultivation Techniques

Select Excellent Varieties

Wheat grain quality and yield traits are controlled both by the genetics of the variety and by cultivation measures. The relationship is as follows: genetics is the internal cause, and cultivation measures are the external cause. Therefore, selecting excellent varieties is the most economical and most effective means of achieving high quality and high yield in winter wheat. Our institute started breeding for high quality and high yield in wheat early on. Varieties bred in the early period such as Yannong 15, and more recently bred varieties such as Yanyou 361 and Yan 2801, not only have the potential for a yield of 600 kg per mu, but their quality indicators also meet the national standard for high-quality wheat.

Fine Tillage and Harrowing, Building Up Soil Fertility

Choose wheat fields with a fertility level of over 500 kg per mu, with topsoil organic matter above 1.2%, total nitrogen above 0.09%, hydrolyzable nitrogen 70 ppm, available phosphorus 25 ppm, and available potassium 90 ppm. Base fertilizer application standard: apply 5000 kg of organic fertilizer per mu, 9 kg of pure nitrogen, 11.5 kg of P2O5 (calculated as P2O5, converted to 25 kg of diammonium phosphate), 75 kg of K2O, and 1 kg of zinc sulfate; for plots deficient in boron, use 0.5 kg of borax. Building up soil fertility is the guarantee of high quality and high yield in winter wheat.

Precision and Uniform Sowing to Create a High-Quality Population

Implement precision and uniform sowing to lower the starting point of the population. In the early growth stage, promote early development of strong seedlings; in the middle stage, reduce ineffective tillers and create a reasonable, high-quality population; in the late stage, protect flowers and increase grains to raise grain weight. Precision and uniform sowing helps improve the productivity of individual plants and is a major technical step in high-yield cultivation. At the same time, this technique can effectively prevent yield reduction and quality deterioration caused by wheat lodging, and is the foundation of high-quality cultivation.

Optimize the Fertilizer Application Structure and Implement "Postponing Nitrogen Fertilizer"

Research shows that, on the basis of balanced fertilization based on soil testing and formulated fertilization, appropriately increasing the amount of nitrogen fertilizer by no more than 20% of the total nitrogen applied, and adjusting the ratio of basal to topdressed nitrogen to 1:1, with the timing of nitrogen topdressing postponed from the greening and standing-up stages to the jointing and booting stages, that is, the "postponing nitrogen fertilizer" technique, helps achieve both increased yield and improved quality in winter wheat. The "postponing nitrogen fertilizer" technique, combined with precision and uniform sowing, has significant effects on shaping an ideal plant type, optimizing population structure, increasing the tiller-to-ear rate and the uniformity of the ear layer, reducing the degeneration of spikelets and florets, increasing the number of grains per ear, delaying plant senescence, improving photosynthetic efficiency in the late stage, and improving quality. It is the core technique of high-quality, high-yield cultivation of winter wheat.

Scientific Irrigation and Timely Prevention and Control of Pests and Diseases

According to laboratory analysis, irrigation tends to reduce the protein content of wheat. If irrigation is combined with increased nitrogen fertilizer application, then yield and protein content increase at the same time, and the two are positively correlated. Therefore, high-quality, high-yield wheat fields must be irrigated with sufficient subsoil moisture before sowing to ensure sowing with adequate soil moisture. For wheat fields with sufficient pre-winter subsoil moisture and a moderate population, winter watering may be omitted, and the traditionally used standing-up water in production can be moved, in combination with the "postponing nitrogen fertilizer" technique, to the jointing and heading stages. In this way, a technical system of rational management of fertilizer and water is formed.

In the late stage of winter wheat production, strengthen field management and promptly prevent and control wheat rust, powdery mildew, and fusarium head blight, to further improve the yield and quality of winter wheat.