Agricultural News
Canola TV--OSU's Josh Bushong Explains Preparations for the Approaching 2013 Planting Window
Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:01:24 CDT
Interest in planting canola is running high, with producers and prospective producers flocking to a couple of recent canola workshops conducted by OSU. Josh Bushong, state canola specialist, says 300 producers showed up in Enid and another 100 attended the event in Altus. Bushong spoke with Ron Hays and says there are a number of things growers need to be doing right now.
"If they're a conventional-till farmer they need to get their fields worked. I know moisture is lacking right now, so it's kind of hard to get some of these fields worked down the way they want.
"If they're no-till, make sure they keep it weed-free. We don't want to lose any more moisture to weeds than we have to. So, keep those sprayed and make sure the ground's ready going into planting season.
"They want to get a good soil sample that's representative of the field. That's something they need to do every year on each field. The ground is fairly dry and most of the values on from those soil tests will probably show relatively high nitrogen value for those soils, but as we get some rains, a bunch of that nitrogen will get tied up and they'll actually have less going into the crop than those soil samples will show for mobile nutrients like nitrogen."
Bushong says most canola producers are applying one-third to two-thirds of their nitrogen before planting to take advantage of low anhydrous prices. He also says producers need to be aware of their phosphorus and potassium levels and augment those if necessary.
With all the interest from producers in adding canola to their crop rotation, seed dealers are booking orders quickly, Bushong says.
"We have quite a few sources out there for seed. We have Dekalb, Croplan, Pioneer. DL Seed's got some hybrids out there. The K-State breeding program also has some through Johnston's. There's a lot of varieties out there, some hybrids, so you want to sit down and look at some data from our trials at OSU, and that can be found on the website. Look at national variety trials that Dr. Mike Stahm puts out at K-State. And look at some of those charts you get from your seed companies and just start booking that seed."
He says farmers planting a good amount of acres should plant at least a couple of different varieties. He says trial data over the last six or seven years shows them to be roughly comparable and producers may want to pick varieties with differences in maturity to spread out the harvest window.
You can see today's conversation with Josh Bushong on CanolaTV by clicking on the play button in the video box below. CanolaTV is a service of PCOM, Producers Cooperative Oil Mill- click here to learn more about how they serve cotton and canola producers across the south.
Our YouTube channel has several dozen past episodes of CanolaTV, with a lot of great information about producing and marketing winter canola in the southern plains- click here to jump there.
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