Canola – Seeding Rate & N Rate

Seeding

May 16
85 – 95 lbs NH3 + starter blend
Bourgault 60 ft, 10″ spacing

An open spring meant Russ could get seeding canola in mid May. After seeding the majority of the field, all that was left to do on the seeding date was put in the 6 strips for the trial.

From south to north, here is a summary of each strip:

• 3 lbs/ac canola, 95 lbs N
• 4 lbs/ac canola, 95 lbs N
• 5.5 lbs/ac canola, 95 lbs N
• 3 lbs/ac canola, 85 lbs N
• 4 lbs/ac canola, 85 lbs N
• 5.5 lbs/ac canola, 85 lbs N

Scouting

Liberty 1.35 L/ac

Weekly scouts were completed on this trial once seeding was completed until spraying was finished. 6 different plant counts on each strip were completed, each counting over 200 plants per strip. Here are the averages of the counts:

• 3.0/85# : 4.51 plants/ft²
• 3.0/95# : 4.63 plants/ft²
• 4.0/85# : 5.79 plants/ft²
• 4.0/95# : 5.86 plants/ft²
• 5.5/85# : 6.40 plants/ft²
• 5.5/95# : 6.38 plants/ft²

​There was minor flea beetle damage across the whole field, but nothing major. All 6 strip trials matured evenly – seeing the strips weekly and knowing what the difference in each was, it was still tough to distinguish a visual difference

Harvest

September 18
NH CR 9060, 30′ straight-cut header

Although this was not a pod-shatter variety, glyphosate was used as a pre-harvest aid a couple weeks prior to harvest for the purpose of straight-cutting. This was done as it was a thin crop, a result of lack of moisture, and did not want swaths to blow.

The Hellekson’s harvested around the trial area the day before. We only had flags on the east side of the trial, so Russ would start there, harvest west, then dump into a weigh wagon. He would combine the leftover strip heading east, dump that into the grain cart, and we repeated the procedure 6 times

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A HUGE thank you to Richard Bratrud of Nutrien (Ryley) for allowing the use of their weigh wagon. Easy to use and a real asset!