1. When you pull out the combine to get it ready for the season, look it over for holes and cracks in the pickup, feederhouse, elevator, shoe seals, separator covers and the grain tank. Canola seed can dribble out these openings even before it reaches the back end…
The optimal swath timing for canola yield and quality is when 60% of seeds on the main stem are showing some colour change. Seed colour change (SCC) is considered any amount of yellow or brown on the seed. This increases crop yield because side branches have longer to fill and average seed size for the whole plant is larger.
Growers who want to try straight combining for the first time, keep these risk scenarios in mind….
The following tips are from the SAFE Farms Harvest TIP sheet. Download the complete document.
The swath timing decision becomes more difficult in crops with plants at multiple stages of growth. Here are some tips to help with the swath decision on these fields….
When spraying, stick to the pre-harvest interval unique to each product. When prepping bins, follow canola storage recommendations….
Dry conditions could mean a hay shortage in parts of the Prairies. Growers with poor-looking canola crops may want to estimate the seed yield potential and weigh that against the potential feed value of the biomass.
Earliest canola in southern Alberta and here and there across the Prairies will be close to swath timing in the next week or two. Many of these early fields are not looking good, with patchy emergence, uneven emergence and short stature due to moisture stress. The swath timing decision becomes more difficult in crops with plants at multiple stages of growth.
The general view is that uniform well-knit canola crops are the best for straight combining, but it can be argued that leaving thin multi-stage canola for straight combining may also be lower risk than swathing.
The Canola Council of Canada agronomy team came up with 12 agronomy priorities for 2015, and then ranked them. Here are the top 10, with our highest ranked topic placed first. We will cover these topics in more detail throughout 2015.