Agricultural News
Canola TV--Producers and Prospective Producers Follow Successful 2012 With Plans for 2013
Wed, 30 May 2012 16:44:27 CDT
With the 2012 canola harvest almost complete, producers are assessing how well it has done for them this year and prospective producers are looking over their shoulders.
Crop consultant Bryan Vincent has worked with farmers from Alva to Ponca City and visits with Ron Hays on Canola TV.
Vincent says his customers have gained a lot of experience with their new crop this year.
"This year's been an exceptional year for canola production as well as wheat production. And canola is a bumper crop, it seems to be. The guys that took care of it and followed their N-Rich strips they're really seeing the rewards of it here. We're seeing better than ever production, so, where the hail stayed off of it, it looks really, really good."
Even with some late-season hail storms which battered several fields, Vincent says producers are still astounded at their yields.
"I was in a field the other day that the insurance called it 65 percent hail damaged, we were still able to weigh off a little over 40 bushels to the acre."
As producers have gained more experience and considered how canola fits into their operations, Vincent says he's seeing a shift in how it works into the planting mix.
"I think we've gone from a weed-control crop, a cover crop that puts down a deep root and now it's becoming the guys' cash crop. And I'm seeing guys wanting to use wheat as their rotation out of canola. In other places I'm seeing guys using milo and beans and they've taken wheat completely out of their rotation. "
He says the producers he is working with are planning to increase their plantings next year.
"A lot of guys are going to go to 50 percent of their acres and move more toward that wheat-canola rotation further west. I have guys that are going to use milo on either side of the canola, either following it in a double crop situation or coming behind milo and planting it into canola. The same way with corn and beans.
"So I think canola has become a really good, solid rotational crop, a cash crop that we can put in there and get a lot of benefits. Along with the benefits come some challenges, but as we keep learning more and more about canola and how to grow it and the little quirks that it needs, we're going to make this a cash crop to stay."
Vincent says that growing canola isn't without its challenges, but they are challenges that can be readily overcome.
"I think the biggest challenge was timing. I know I had some producers that I went by and said, 'Look, we need to get the bugs sprayed right away' and they waited a couple of weeks and it cost them some yield.
"The same way with fertilizer. You know fertilizer needs to be on in a timely fashion so that's part of the learning curve. We've got to be more timely. Wheat's more forgiving."
Canola TV is a service of PCOM, Producers Cooperative Oil Mill. Click here for their website to learn more about their interests in serving the farming community.
Click on the arrow within the video box to see today's CanolaTV segment- and click here for the YouTube channel "Winter Canola TV," where you can enjoy and learn from previous Canola TV segments.
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