There are so many agronomic decisions to make when growing canola, and those decisions don’t stop even as the season comes to a close with combines ready to roll.
As Ian Epp, agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada explains in this Canola School, farmers have several options to consider when staging for pre-harvest applications or the swathing vs. straight cutting decision.
Sometimes the decision of when to pull the trigger on swathing or harvest is made all the more difficult in years when a grower looks out at their canola crop to see a mix of greens, yellows and browns. Hail, pest damage or even elevation changes within a crop field can affect the maturity timing of canola.
Epp says it’s worth the time to thoroughly scout the field before making management decisions, as there’s plenty to assess prior to making management calls.
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A couple things that might need to be decided before beginning harvest are whether to swath or straight cut the canola and when the timing is right to spray a pre-harvest burndown.
The timing on pre-harvest glyphosate can be critical to the seed being market access ready, as plants that are sprayed prior to 60 per cent seed colour change in the least mature part of the field can lead to glyphosate residue in the seed, says Epp.
Early swathing can also result in yield loss, however if there is a need to get combines moving, less than one per cent prematurity might still be worth it. If a grower has seeded a shatter-tolerant variety, an option that they might want to look at in a variable field would be straight cutting the crop. This allows producers the flexibility of harvesting the parts of the field that are ready while letting the less mature areas stand longer; however swathing can be the fastest way to get the crop down, dry and in the bin, Epp says.
The main thing with any of these decisions is to make them on a situational basis. Pick what fits best with the field and in the moment, Epp says, so there’s a right mix of decisions for every farm.
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