PRINCETON, Ky. — The weather has been anything but winter-like this season, much to the delight of golfers. Some days have reached the 60-degree mark at a time of year when 40 degrees is more normal.

This warmth may be good for some, but wheat producers are worried their crop may be adversely affected. The wheat has already shown signs of progressing faster than usual, so a hard freeze could harm the plants. Also, if the warm temperatures persist, producers may have to be on the lookout for a couple of late-season diseases much sooner than expected.

Dr. Jim Herbek, a grain crops specialist with the University of Kentucky’s (UK) College of Agriculture, said the wheat is looking good at this point but it is likely in the fourth or fifth growth stages, well beyond average.

“We’ve had some abnormally warm weather in January. If this continues into February, we’ll have some concerns. If we get a good, hard freeze, we might have more damage to the wheat crop,” he said. “This warmer-than-normal weather is just pushing the wheat crop too far along.”

Herbek also said probably the big worry is of producers who want to put nitrogen on the crop at this point. That would spur further growth if temperatures remain on the warm side.

“That would make it advance enough that if we did get a hard freeze, or below-freezing temperatures, it would cause quite a bit of damage to that crop,” he said. “The nitrogen would just accelerate the growth, which we don’t need right now. The recommendation would be to hold off on that for as long as we can.”

Under normal conditions, farmers would be applying some nitrogen at this point, but nothing has been normal so far this winter. From a disease standpoint, leaf and stripe rusts are generally more of a concern further south. The diseases make their way northward each year, but normally get here too late in the season to cause a problem.

According to information from UK, “The risk that either or both diseases will develop earlier in the spring and increase to damaging levels at critical wheat growth stages increases during mild winters, due to the possibility that one or both rust fungi might have overwintered at higher than normal levels.”

UK extension plant pathologist Dr. Don Hershman said, “It is not highly unusual for low levels of leaf and stripe rust to overwinter in Kentucky; however, the mild fall and winter we have experienced thus far suggests that we could see rusts occurring earlier and building to damaging levels in susceptible wheat varieties this spring, due to increased winter survival.”

He suggested if the mild winter continues, producers should monitor their fields for rust.

It is anyone’s guess whether that warmth will continue. UK meteorologist Tom Priddy said most of the winter weather has stayed up north and no one quite knows whether it will make its way this far south.

“The Arctic Oscillation (AO) is so strong this year it has all the cold air bottled up to the north,” he said.

The AO is an “important Arctic climate index with positive and negative phases, which represents the state of atmospheric circulation over the Arctic,” according to information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This pattern affects weather not only in the Arctic regions but here as well. Priddy pointed out Alaska and Canada are having tremendous winters, while regions further south have been spared – so far.

There could be changes. Priddy said another atmospheric low-pressure area known as the North Atlantic Oscillation could shift and allow some of that cold to make its way here, but there is no indication that will happen any time soon.

Priddy noted parts of Europe and Russia are experiencing tougher than normal winter conditions right now, perhaps a preview of what could be headed this way. If that’s going to happen, the sooner the better – many farmers remember the 2007 season, when warm winter weather spurred faster than normal growth for much of the state’s produce when a hard Easter freeze hit and destroyed much of the early fruit and vegetable crops that year.

Priddy also said insect populations could be much higher this summer if the winter weather doesn’t start behaving like winter soon.