I have seen this problem before but caused by other reasons...

Not positive but from my farming experience, there are two problems with this field of wheat. One is the very late freeze probably killing over half of the small crop that is here.. the evidence is the white heads, full of empty promises... nothing in the head at all...
and two, some of the worst farming I have ever witnessed! This field had not been worked in two years with the crop from two years ago left in the field due to all the summer rain we had, and then it was disked once and sowed to wheat, and then top dressed... anyone who knows farming in this area realizes you are inviting a disaster to happen, and sure enough, just as I predicted when it was sown, it is a field of Cheat! very little wheat at all... and if you look close you will see one of the best stands of wheat that I have ever witnessed on our land.
For those "city folks" .. haha... cheat is a very valuable crop to makers of cheap livestock feed. It has zero value in a ration, cost almost nothing, but is considered good fill in a grain mix.. to cheapen it up! To the wheat farmer, this is one of the last things you want in a field of wheat. It is a bad weed and grows very easily, especially when encouraged to. It gets its name because when it is ripe and is cut along with the wheat by the combine, it takes up space. Farmers are paid by the bushel for their grain. Wheat weighs an average of 60 lbs to the bushel... and cheat weighs about 18 to 22 lbs to the bushel... when the load of wheat from this field is taken to the elevator and dumped.. it is first checked to see how much "cheat" is in it.. in the old days they did not do this.. and the precentage of cheat in the wheat is deducted from the weight of the 60 pound bushel of wheat.. so if there is 10% cheat.. the farmer would have to give the buyer another 6.67 pounds of good wheat to make up for what they are cheated by the cheat!! As you can see this is a very costly weed especially to the wheat farmer.
It's not to easy to control but the first thing wheat farmers learn in wheat farming 101 is it can be controlled somewhat by proper farming practices, and now days chemicals can be applied to control it even more... the easiest and simplest way is to work the ground a couple of times after showers in the late summer and early fall, especially if not wanting to pasture the crop.
Oh well, I think I am writing this because I wanted to see if I could remember.. haha.. and I do..

so moving on..
have a great day!
s