Reading Time: 5 minutes In late 2020, the Canola Council of Canada surveyed 1,000 canola farmers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to check in on common practices. One notable finding is that 10 per cent of respondents still target 30 per cent seed colour change on the main stem when swathing canola. Another 26 per cent target 31-50 per […] Read more
Don’t cut canola too soon
Swathing at 30 per cent seed colour change is so 1980s. Recent surveys show it’s better to wait until 60 per cent — or later
Capturing spores in the fight against sclerotinia
You don’t need to guess at sclerotinia infection potential in your canola crop — three tests are available
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sclerotinia stem rot is the most yield-damaging canola disease in Western Canada, yet payback on fungicide hinges on a “yes” to these three questions: Is canopy moisture through flowering sufficient for high levels of infection? Is yield potential high enough to provide a return? Are the spores present? The answer to question one depends on […] Read more
Managing salinity with forages
Some saline areas can never grow a profitable annual crop. Two farmers share their experiences with seeding perennial forages instead
Reading Time: 8 minutes Some acres were never suited to annual crop production. As some farmers get a better handle on the profitability of each cropped acre, they are putting the most dismal of these acres back into perennial forages where they belong. Salinity is a common reason for chronic underperformance. Severe saline areas are sickly white, rimmed with […] Read more
Canola flowers flounder in the heat
Yield loss can be more than we realize — highs over 29.5 C disrupt the flower-fertilization process, which can leave blanks and empty pods up the stem
Reading Time: 7 minutes Lindsay Wytinck was camping with her family on the 2020 July long weekend and did something she doesn’t usually do — turned on the camper air conditioner so they could sleep. “That was a first for us,” says the farmer from Cypress River, Man. “The nights were so uncomfortably hot.” Meanwhile back at the farm, […] Read more
Old combines hold their own at harvest
A PAMI survey finds canola losses can be minimized by operators who understand their machines and how to set them
Reading Time: 6 minutes When the Dowling farm at MacDowall, Sask., runs any of its three New Holland combines of various vintages, canola losses out the back are basically the same. The three models are a TR96 from 1991, a TR99 from 2000 and a CR970 from 2004. “I was impressed with how consistent they were,” says Sheldon Dowling. […] Read more
How to keep sclerotinia infection to less than five per cent
New research shows fungicide applied at or just after 20 per cent flowering is still the best way to stop sclerotinia stem rot from shredding canola profits
Reading Time: 6 minutes Like a detective piecing together the timeline of a crime, Dwayne Hegedus has played and replayed the sequence of events from when a sclerotinia-infested petal drops onto a canola leaf to the all-is-lost cleaving of the cuticle. The scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon now knows, genetically, what arrows the pathogen shoots and […] Read more
Two farmers make the case for pea-canola intercropping
Growing two crops in the same field sounds like it could be difficult, but these two farmers have figured it out and say the result is higher profit
Reading Time: 9 minutes Intercropping is an ancient farming practice. Farmers in Meso-america thousands of years ago started growing “the three sisters” — corn, beans and squash — together in the same fields, letting the symbiotic nature of their biologies provide an overall better result than growing them separately. Strong cornstalks provided a “pole” for the climbing beans. Beans […] Read more
Two research projects looking at intercrops
Western Ag Innovations run intercrop trials in southern Alberta
Reading Time: 4 minutes Eric Bremer is leading a research project on intercropping in the Lethbridge area. Bremer was involved in intercropping research as a grad student back in the 1980s and jumped at the opportunity to look at it again with the support of Western Ag Innovations owner Ken Greer and a research grant from Alberta Pulse Growers […] Read more
Getting to higher canola emergence
With consistent depth, placement into warm, moist soils, and good competition against weeds, your canola fields can turn a higher percentage of seeds into mature, high-yielding plants
Reading Time: 7 minutes Bob and Shelley Bartley raised some eyebrows when Shelley shared photos of their seeding tool on Twitter. The farmers from Roland, Man., seed with a 35-year-old John Deere hoe box drill attached to a new John Deere cart. “I bought that John Deere 9450 hoe drill for $17,000 way back when,” Bob Bartley says. “We […] Read more
At a glance: 10 tips to improve survival of your canola seed
Reading Time: 2 minutes Only about 50 to 60 per cent of canola seeds survive to become productive plants, on average. With the following tips, canola farmers can increase seed survival and get more from their seed investment. 1. Seed shallow. Half an inch to one inch below the packer furrow is the recommended seed depth for canola. This […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
