Double cropping soybeans after winter wheat is an attractive approach to enhancing farm profitability and soil health in the Midwest. This project is characterizing and developing new high-yielding winter wheat varieties with early maturity – an important trait that enables earlier planting of double-crop soybeans to maximize yield potential.

• Winter wheat continues to gain attention as a tool to break up the soybean-corn rotation cycle, improve soil health and add another profit stream.
• To maximize the profitability of a wheat-soybean double-crop system, it’s important to find high-yielding winter wheat varieties that can be harvested earlier so that soybeans can be planted at a time that is more favorable for yield development.

• This project provides jointing time, maturity time and yield data for available winter wheat varieties to Illinois’ farmers so they can make more informed decisions about which varieties to incorporate into a double-crop rotation.
• Knowing jointing time of wheat varieties helps farmers choose varieties that would avoid damage from spring freezes.
• Knowing when wheat varieties reach maturity allows farmers to select for early maturity time in addition to yield to ensure timely double-crop soybean planting.
• This project also develops the next generation wheat varieties that will help growers reach higher levels of yield of both wheat and double-crop soybean crops.

• Dr. Jessica Rutkoski, Assistant Professor, UIUC
• Luis Gehrke, Research Specialist, UIUC
• Tadele Kamssa, Senior Research Specialist, UIUC
• Sophia Arista, Master’s Student, UIUC

• Addieville; Belleville; Neoga; St. Peter; Urbana

Dr. Jessica Rutkoski
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
217-372-6258
jrut@illinois.edu