Agricultural News
Canola Going into the WInter Looking Good in the Southern Plains
Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:18:05 CST
Mother Nature has delivered farmers good news who are growing winter canola in the Southern Plains this year.
Approximately 110,000 acres of the oilseed crop, the most for it's short production history, is growing in North Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, according to Gene Neuens, Producers Cooperative Oil Mill field represetative here.
"We have looked at the crop from the Texas to the Oklahoma panhandle areas and everywhere else," Neuens said. "With the recent winter freezes, the crop is going into its dormant stage,
"Earlier stages of the 2010 crop's growth came along well. We had good moisture for planting last September and a warm fall which permitted the crop to do a good job of growing untill cold weather set in."
There are some minor problems PCOM and Oklahoma State University Extension specialists are keeping an eye on, Neuens said. Some fields contain canola planst considered to be too small and other fields have plants that are too big. he said.
"A lot of cold, dry weather could be harmful to those smaller plants," he said, "and the larger plants will need extra nitrogen to keep them growing well when spring temperatures start the crop growing again."
But overall, the 2010 canola crop is right on track for the winter growth hiatus it experiences, Neuens said.
Earlier in the fall, there was some depredation on the crop from insects in a few areas, according to Josh Bushong, OSU Extension assoc. specialist for canola production. Bushong, who works out of Enid, Ok., began his work earlier this year working with farmers in northwest Oklahoma. Another OSU Extension specialist, Ross Haxton, headquartered in El Reno, Ok., was assigned to the southwest Oklahoma counties. But now with Haxton taking another job in Texas, Bushong has been driving farther and longer with increased responsibilities until Haxton's replacement can be hired. In his travels throughout the western Oklahoma area, Bushong observed limited insect problems in canola fields with diamondback moth larvae and armyworms, he said.
"There was a need to use insecticides on a few fields to control the pests," Bushong said. "But in most cases, the crop was growing well enough to avoid applying insecticides. We have not seen any aphids yet in the canola crop this year." Bushong is pleased with the condition of the canola crop so far this year. While the crop started out with adequate soil moisture earlier in the fall, he has seen some areas where more moisture will be needed when the crop starts growing in the spring.
There has been much interest in winter canola production this year for several reasons, but two stand out in particiular, Neuens said. "Winter canola was specifically chosen less than a decade ago as a crop to reduce the huge weed problem winter wheat producers were fighting in the Southern Plains," he said. "Originating from spring canola varieties typically grown in northern states and Canada, crop breeders developed new varieties of the crop which would grow in winter months like hard red winter wheat, a crop grown on millions of acres across the US."
Decades of continuous wheat production helped create infestations of perennial weeds like cheatgrass, winter rye and other plants whose population grew each year in wheat fields.
As the weeds spread throughout the Plains states, farmers found the use of herbicides was often too expensive for them to use to control the weeds.
An OSU weed scientist, Dr. Tom Peeper, looking for solutions to control weeds in winter wheat, along with other agronomists at OSU and Kansas State University as well as seed production companies, began a cooperative effort six years ago to develop winter canola as a viable answer to the winter wheat weed problem. Scientists found winter canola, an oilseed crop like cotton, was a crop with good growing characteristics for the same areas where wheat had been grown for decades, With a large taproot able to seek deep soil mosture in dryland farming conditions, canola, planted after wheat, breaks up the growth cycle of the weeds growing in competition with wheat. Seed from the weeds are found in wheat seed taken to market when the wheat is harvested each sping. Presence of the weed seed in marketed wheat will sharply reduce prices paid to wheat farmers.
Such price dockage has become a serious problem for Plains state wheat farmers with several meetings held in 2010 by wheat growers to find ways to correct the weed problem. Along with its proven ability to stop the weed problem in winter wheat through rotation of the two crops, another important benefit of canola production has been its marketing success.
When winter canola was first planted in enough acres to help control weeds in winter wheat, finding a reliable market for the crop was difficult, with some of the larger canola producers sending their seed as far as Mexico to be processed.
Marketing problems were solved when the Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, which has been processing cottonseed for varied markets for over 64 years, chose to enter the canola marketing arena.
Now, farmers have local grain terminals where they can deliver canola seed which is bought by PCOM. Canola seed, which contains a high percentage of oil, is used for cooking oil which is sought for its healthy cooking characteristics. Canola oil is also processed for biofuels.
Prices paid for canola are usually two to three dollars per bushel more than winter wheat. Currently, cash price paid for winter canola is $9.45 per bushel compared to $6.92 per bushel for winter wheat.
Winter canola production in the Southern Plains is expected to increase in the future as more farmers place it in their diversified crop program, Neuens said.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
