Agricultural News
Bright Prospects for Winter Canola Plantings This Fall for 2011 Crop
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 5:49:17 CDT
The buzz about winter canola as an alternative crop to winter wheat in Oklahoma continues to build- and former OSU Extension weed specialist Dr. Tom Peeper says that he believes more than twice as many acres will go into canola this fall across the southern plains compared to what was planted in the fall of 2010. Dr. Peeper was the loudest voice early on touting the potential benefits of a crop like canola for wheat farmers, who desperately need a crop to rotate into their wheat acres. Dockage rates were their highest ever during the 2010 harvest, and farmers with weed problems paid dearly when they hauled their wheat crop to town. Roundup Ready varieties of canola allow a farmer to clean up grassy weeds in their wheat fields and then go back and produce a higher yielding, cleaner wheat crop following canola.
While the wheat dockage rates were brutal during harvest earlier this year, any dockage in canola is calculated and then simply subtracted from the total weight of the load- no other penalty falls on the back of the producer. Peeper says that we had 80,000 acres or so for the 2010 harvest- and he thinks that farmers may step up plantings this fall for next June's harvest to closer to 250,000 acres, if the supply of seed will hold out. He adds that the longer term potential for canola in Oklahoma may be close to a million acres, as he believes that you should only plant canola in a field one year in three- and that will result in a much cleaner field the other two years for your wheat.
We caught up with Dr. Peeper during his retirement period when he is not working for the University as he attended the Bayer Crop Science Oklahoma Innovations Conference earlier this week in Oklahoma City. Dr. Peeper indicates that he may do contract work for OSU after September first when the sixty day "no work" window is over. Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear our full conversation about canola in the southern plains with one of the men that helped get the ball rolling on what is turning out to be "black gold" for producers as they harvest the tiny black canola berry in June of each year.
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