Wheat in the Eastern Shore of Maryland is booting and should be heading out soon. In fact, some of the early-planted wheat is at the early flowering stage already (Information: Mr. Ben Beale, St. Marys County, UMD Extension). Wheat is considered to be at flowering when at least 50% of the heads of a field are beginning to show yellow anthers. Right now, FHB risk appears to be low, so if your barley is heading, or wheat is flowering, you can skip applying fungicides for now. However, the later part of the week is expected to be wet, so keep your eyes out for my risk forecasts if you are not there yet and your wheat flowers in the next few weeks. So far, no major concern from other diseases like powdery mildew or rusts has been seen in wheat in the state. Up in the western part of the state wheat is at second node to flag leaf stage, predictably around 2 weeks away from flowering. So, no need for fungicide application there yet.

--Nidhi Rawat, Small Grains Pathologist, University of Maryland