When Does Wheat Mature? Variety and Growing Region Determine the Harvest Time

Wheat is an important food crop, and its maturity time is not fixed; it is mainly affected by the variety type, sowing season and local climate. In the same region, the harvest period of winter wheat and spring wheat can differ by several months, so to know when wheat matures, you first need to distinguish which type of wheat is being grown.

Winter wheat is generally sown in autumn and matures in early summer of the following year after overwintering. In China's winter wheat regions, harvesting starts gradually from south to north, earlier in the south and later in the north. Spring wheat, by contrast, is sown in spring and harvested around midsummer of the same year, mainly in one-crop-a-year areas such as the Northeast and Northwest. The farming proverb "wheat comes at Grain in Ear, grain comes at autumn" refers to the rough harvest rhythm of winter wheat regions.

Judging by the appearance in the field, wheat maturity goes through the milk-ripe, dough-ripe and fully ripe stages. During the milk-ripe stage the grains are green, and a milky white liquid flows out when they are pinched open; after entering the dough-ripe stage, the stems and wheat heads turn yellow and the grains harden, but a fingernail can still leave a mark; by the fully ripe stage the plants are withered, yellow and dry, and the grains are hard and plump. In practice, harvesting is mostly done from the late dough-ripe stage to the fully ripe stage, when grain weight is basically stable and machine harvesting losses are also relatively small.

The harvest timing also needs to be decided together with the weather. If wheat encounters continuous rainy days after fully ripening, sprouting on the head or grain shattering easily occurs, so around maturity it is necessary to harvest during clear weather and dry it in time. Storing the wheat grains only after they are sun-dried can reduce the risk of moisture damage and mold. Growers usually go into the fields more often to observe changes in the grains and stems, and then arrange the harvest by referring to the advice of local agricultural technicians; in this way they can usually grasp the best timing.