In guest host Kara Oosterhuis’ hot seat today is Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialist Gregory Sekulic!
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SUMMARY
- The four Rs when it comes to fertilizer: right place, right rate, right time, right source (who else always forgets the fourth?)
- Grain bags. Does electrical tape work?
Squiggly lines or stern words? Keeping the crows away. Photo credit: Gregory Sekulic - Bees — how did they fare last year?
- Diseases and other things in the field?
- Sclerotinia — 18% to 20% yield loss, right off the hop, but in areas of five years of extreme drought, it can be tough to convince farmers to spray
- Don’t spray for last year. Make the call each year, but sclerotinia is one of those diseases that you should probably pencil in every year if canola is a common crop
- The earliest you’ll see field evidence of sclerotinia is long past when you should have sprayed
- When should you be scouting? Always! At or after harvest is a good time for some diseases, but some diseases look pretty similar that late. But clean stems will tell a story too.
- Clubroot: already in much of Alberta, spreading in Saskatchewan, and it’ll be found in more Manitoba fields, too
- We’re looking at 20 years of having clubroot around
- There was a time where pH was going to save Western Canadian fields, but we know better now
- A two-year break from canola can reduce spore loads
- It’s just a matter of time before clubroot moves across the Prairies
- Don’t bring in new equipment without cleaning and sanitizing first
- Have suspected fields? Knock off the mud, at a minimum and seed them last
- Pressure washing will reduce the risk even more, but is it practical? It’ll be worth it
- A complete decontamination should happen if you are coming out of a field you have confirmed clubroot in
- Gregory likes malt barley products (and to help lengthen that rotation)
- He’s also a bit of a zero-till zealot. So please, deal with residue out of the combine and with the seeder; not with recreational tillage
- There’s not necessarily anything wrong with a “canola blend” but it needs to be adapted to each field, especially to avoid over-application
- Sulphur is perhaps the only macro that should go down in the fall (without risk/worry of losses to the environment)
- The arena of death between beetles and pests was a huge hit at CanoLABs
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