Starting the year off on the right foot requires a little bit of forethought and planning. When it comes to keeping a canola crop clean during the early stages of growth, there are some steps to take before even seeding the crop. Dr. Charles Geddes, research scientist in weed ecology and cropping systems at Agriculture… Read More
If the weather was in your favour this fall, and the canola is off, now is a great opportunity to review what went wrong or what went right with the crop. One way to get some insight is to do plant stand counts and some post-harvest scouting. “Despite the challenges that 2020 threw at us,… Read More
Walking into a green, fully-podded canola field isn’t easy — it’s actually more like swimming if you’ve got a good stand and your plants are well knit together. But, it’s important to really get into the field to scout for bertha armyworms. Before you wade in to your canola to look for this pest, Gregory… Read More
Kochia is a big concern for farmers across the Prairies, primarily because it’s a tough weed to kill, and the population is rife with herbicide resistance. Most farmers are aware of Group 2 resistance — which is old news — but newer Group 9 resistance is cropping up, which further complicates control of this prolific… Read More
We’re starting to see some flowering in canola and with that, scouting for sclerotinia is on the to-do list. Justine Cornelsen, with the Canola Council of Canada, based out of Manitoba, joined Kara Oosterhuis in this latest episode of Canola School. “It comes down to environmental conditions,” says Cornelsen, “Do you have enough moisture? Is… Read More
Early flowering can be a really good check point for canola crops. Scouting at early flower can be very instructive for what to expect further along in the season, and it’s a great opportunity to see what insects are out there or could develop into an issue later in the season. In this episode of… Read More
In the last couple of years, aster leafhoppers have arrived around the third week of May, perhaps on the same wind that diamondback moths fly in on from the U.S. The aster leafhopper is a small, bullet-shaped insect that doesn’t directly damage the plant; instead it is a vector for the disease aster yellows. In… Read More
Cutworms are a common pest in several crops, including canola, across the Prairies. These below-ground dwellers cause damage by clipping or severing stems of seedlings, so unlike other pest damage, cutworm feeding kills young plants. In this episode of RealAgriculture’s Canola School, Kara Oosterhuis sits down with Dr. Vincent Hervet, research scientist with Agriculture and… Read More
Seeding is well under way across the Prairies and as farmers start seeding canola, flea beetles are likely the biggest pest of concern. For this Canola School, correspondent Kara Oosterhuis sits down with Dr. John Gavloski, the provincial entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development. Even if canola isn’t in the ground yet and as… Read More
Wireworms are a widespread concern across the prairies early in the growing season. Kara Oosterhuis recently caught up with John Gavloski, provincial entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development, in this Canola School episode to talk about the insect pest that can impact your canola crop. Wireworms are the larval stage of the click beetle… Read More
Many farmers are familiar with consulting economic threshold charts when it comes time to control insects, but many may be surprised to learn that there are economic thresholds for other pests, too. Gregory Sekulic, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, explains in this Canola School episode that although spraying is an important tool,… Read More
When it comes to stress on a canola crop, there are two ‘buckets’ that it can fall into: abiotic stress and biotic stress. Biotic stressors can include things such as harmful insects — flea beetles, for example — and abiotic stressors have to do with factors dealing with the environment, such as frost. This time… Read More
Often when we think of herbicide resistance, as producers, we think it means we have to stop spraying certain products completely. This is not always the case, and as Tom Wolf of Sprayers 101 and AgriMetrix explains in our latest Canola School episode, why and how you can take some extra steps from the sprayer… Read More
Most producers that grow canola are well aware of blackleg and the damage the disease can inflict on a canola crop. However, when we think of scouting for blackleg, we often think of clipping canola plants later on in the season when the disease is evident in stems. Believe it or not, blackleg is a… Read More
It’s been six years since the disease we now call verticillium stripe was discovered in canola in North America. First identified on a research farm in Manitoba in 2014, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) survey the next year found the pathogen, which can cause striping symptoms on canola stems, in six provinces — from… Read More
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