Looking at the current state of the commodity markets, you may be tempted to make some last minute changes to your crop plan.
Deviating away from your crop rotation may seem like a good idea in the short term, but as Sheldon Toews, technical service specialist with BASF, explains in this Canola School episode that it may not be ideal in the long run.
“If you’re shortening up that canola rotation, it really will be a short term gain there,” he explains. “Any grower has worked hard with a rotation, so now if you take that, and you shorten that rotation and put canola in, you might have spent money last fall on fertilizer, putting a different fertilizer blend in. So now you’ve got to maybe step in, and then go and adjust the blend, or try to make sure you’ve got the right nutrients there for that canola crop.”
It’s not just fertilizer blends you’re going to want to pay attention to either, says Toews, which herbicides you used in the prior year are something that could cause issues if you steer away from your plan.
“Herbicide rotations are extremely important. Resistant management. If you’re rotation, shortening that rotation, now what’s your go to going to be when it comes to those herbicide rotations,” he notes.
Tightening up your canola rotation can have extreme disease ramifications as well, especially when looking at a pathogen such as clubroot.
“Clubroot is a really important reason why growers should stick to that rotation. We know a one and three rotation keeps those clubroot spores low,” Toews explains. “There are other diseases like blackleg that also come into play when we are talking about canola rotation. So it is extremely important to keep that good rotation and have other crops in there, from a disease standpoint.”
Check out the full conversation between Sheldon Toews and RealAgriculture’s Kara Oosterhuis, below:
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | All Podcasts
Please register to read and comment.