Spring is slowly making its way into the air across the country, as always, faster in some areas than others.
As tractors begin to hit the fields, one of the things producers need to be paying attention to is which crop protection products could potentially hurt the marketability of a crop.
Keep it Clean is a joint initiative between Pulse Canada, Cereals Canada, the Canola Council of Canada, the Barley Council of Canada, and the Prairie Oat Growers Association that does just that — it helps keep your crop, and your fields clean, so we can continue to access export markets.
As Greg Bartley, director of crop protection and crop quality at Pulse Canada explains, this includes information on potential market risks associated with crop protection products and how to mitigate these risks, while also providing information on things like crop diseases, proper grain storage, and what growers can do to ensure that these things don’t impact the marketability of their crop.
Keep it Clean has released its advisory list for 2022, and building on previous recommendations, there are notable changes for the following two chemistries:
- Fluxopyram
- This is a “do not use” on malt barley, and “be informed” for use on barley for feed or food
- Sethoxydim
- “be informed” for use on lentils and chickpeas
Always following the label on a product is absolutely crucial, says Bartley, but this goes even beyond that. (Story continues below interview)
“So this is obviously for pesticides that are registered for use in Canada, but also products that won’t create a market risk. And that’s where the label doesn’t get that information,” he explains. “So what this advisory does is tries to provide that clarification on the registered product in Canada that poses that market risk, and then provide direction. Talk to your buyer — maybe you simply need to not use that product if there’s going to be a MRL risk associated with it into our export market.”
It doesn’t matter where you are in Canada, the rules that Keep it Clean are trying to educate on will apply to you, because it’s all about keeping our export markets open. The thought process of ‘I have very few fields, I don’t need to follow the rules,’ can have heavy ramifications.
“What happens on a single farm, single field, does matter, and that can be detected,” says Bartley. “For example, you know many of our pulse crops are not exported in bulk shipments. When you have a bulk shipment going into the export market, there’s lots of blending that goes on, and may reduce the risk. For pulses, a lot of our exports go by smaller shipments, so containers. So in this instance, it’s a very good chance that the container contains product from a single field, or maybe one or two fields, where we just don’t get that blending going on. So when that happens, it can be tested in export markets.
“We have seen cases where we can trace a non-compliance back to a single farm. So it’s a false narrative thinking what you do on your farm doesn’t matter.”
Product/crop types included in the advisory for 2022 include the following:
Fluopyram – “do not use” on malt barley and “be informed” for use on barley for feed or food
Sethoxydim – “be informed” for use on lentils and chickpeas
Chlormequat – “be informed” for use on malt barley
Chlorothalonil – “be informed” for use on chickpeas
Glufosinate – “do not use” on lentils and “be informed” for use on dry beans.
Glyphosate – “be informed” for use on wheat, oats and pulses; “do not use” on malt barley
Saflufenacil – “do not use” on malt barley
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