Canola rotation, equipment sanitizing, and bees — a LIVE! with Gregory Sekulic

In guest host Kara Oosterhuis’ hot seat today is Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialist Gregory Sekulic!

Don’t miss RealAg LIVE! weekdays at 1 pm M/3 pm E on your favourite social media channel — Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, or Youtube! 

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?

  

• 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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