Canola TV
Canola TV--Getting Ready for the 2013 Canola Crop
Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:50:36 CDT
Looking past the blistering heat and bone dry conditions now, it won’t be long until planting time for winter crops. Heath Sanders of Producers Cooperative Oil Mill recently spoke with Ron Hays about lessons learned from the 2012 crop and can be carried over to the new growing season.
“Well, one of the things that’s really sticking out in my mind right now is that we dusted in a lot of canola last year,” Sanders said. “We got rains toward the end to bring that crop up. And the way it’s looking, we may be facing that situation again this year.
“We had a lot of success last year. We dusted in the crop. We had good rains. We don’t know if that’s going to happen again this year, but I’m much more comfortable with recommending to a farmer to dust it in, granted we get some good rains when we need them.”
Canola was a big success for Oklahoma producers last season and Sanders said he expects more will jump on the bandwagon this year, straining the available infrastructure in the process.
“Last year, with the acres we had, it really strained it. And you add on another 100-, 150,000 more acres and it’s really going to be strained. But, guys made money this year with this crop. Our winter crops seem to work a little bit better here with winter wheat and rotating. And guys had success. Everybody when I’m out in the field talking to farmers are very impressed with the way their crop went and they’re looking to expand more acres.
Sanders said there are several things producers and prospective producers need to be doing right now get ready for the rapidly-approaching planting season.
“I think a couple of things to be thinking about right now are to go ahead and get their seed booked; figure out what varieties they’re going to plant in different farms and whether they have SU carryover that was sprayed on there in the spring. They may be looking at differences in pH. They need to get soil samples taken and get things ready to go.
“Another thing that I’ve noticed and we’ve observed is a really good wheat crop as well. And along with that really good wheat crop we’ve got a lot of wheat straw out there. So, residue management, if we’re in a no-till production system, we’ve got to manage our residue going into this planting season.”
Sanders said that is necessary for producing the best canola crop.
“Canola doesn’t like the straw or the trash around it when you plant it. When it comes up it likes to have a clean row. It likes really good seed-to-soil contact in order to prepare itself for the winter. So if guy’s will just manage their residue whether they’re harrowing, figuring out ways to manage residue is going to be key this year especially coming off this really good wheat crop we had.”
Preparation time is growing very short from some growers, Sanders said, with some about four weeks away from sowing seed. He said he wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some producers sowing in early September.
“There’ll be guys starting to plant canola on the first of September--depending on if we get moisture-and it’s very hard to not go in there and start planting when you’ve got that moisture. But in a no-till situation, I don’t mind planting a little bit earlier because our soils will cool down faster in a no-till production system. So you need a little extra time.”
Click on the play button in the video box below for the latest edition of Canola TV. Canola TV is a service of Producers Cooperative Oilmill. Click here for their website, where you can learn more about their efforts to serve farmers growing cotton as well as winter canola.
You can click here for the CanolaTV Youtube channel, where you can see previous episodes- which offer insight into producing winter canola here in Oklahoma and the southern plains.
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