Spring wheat · Renca, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile
When to plant spring wheat in Renca
Main outdoor window
24 Aug - 14 Sep
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
14 September
In Renca, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
2 Dec - 1 Jan
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Renca
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow direct
24 Aug - 14 Sep
Three weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
2 Dec - 1 Jan
Spring wheat through the year
Against the frost risk in Renca
Why these dates
Sow as early as the ground can be worked, roughly three weeks before the last frost. The seedlings tolerate frost easily; what they cannot tolerate is heat during grain fill, so an early sowing is a hedge against a hot midsummer.
Seedlings survive to about -6C. The vulnerable stage is flowering, where a frost causes blank heads that look normal until threshing.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Spring wheat are timed for direct sowing 3 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Renca.
The median frost-free season here is 265 days, against 100 to 130 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Growing spring wheat in Renca
When should I plant spring wheat in Renca?
Aim for 24 Aug - 14 Sep in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 14 Sep - 5 Oct - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will spring wheat be ready to harvest in Renca?
Expect to start picking around 2 Dec - 1 Jan, based on 100 to 130 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will spring wheat tolerate?
Seedlings survive to about -6C. The vulnerable stage is flowering, where a frost causes blank heads that look normal until threshing.