Agricultural News
2014 Winter Canola Crop Largely Planted and Looks Good- We Talk With Josh Bushong
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 05:27:25 CDT
The planting window is about to close for getting winter canola into the ground for harvest in 2014- and OSU Extension Canola Specialist Josh Bushong says that most of the acres are in the ground and that in many locations, the crop has germinated and is getting established. Last year, a lot of the canola had to be planted into dry soil conditions, while this year- there have been multiple rains during the planting window across the state to allow farmers to have enough moisture.
In some cases, there has been heavy rain after canola was planted and that has caused germination problems for some producers in several counties- Bushong mentions Garfield and Grant where in some cases seed has planted at a 3/4 inch depth- and got pushed down to a one and a half inch depth- resulting in those germination concerns.
Bushong adds that in southwest Oklahoma, canola is generally up and some producers are already finding worms in and around the small canola plants.
Bushong says that there are definitely more acres this year than were planted in 2012, but declined to offer a specific number of how many acres we may end up with in 2013 for the 2014 harvest. He did say that some producers were forced to make a last minute decision not to plant canola this fall because of the uncertainty over qualifying for crop insurance. There are 11 Oklahoma counties that you can currently write crop insurance for canola with a simple application- in all other counties the farmer had to work with their crop insurance agent to generate a lengthy written request for the insurance. Those applications had to be in by the latter part of August- and the Risk Management Agency of the USDA was supposed to evaluate and approve or reject them in a timely manner. Dozens of those applications (perhaps more) still sit on the desks of the RMA- and remain there with the Federal Government shutdown stopping that work, leaving farmers hanging over whether to plant or not.
You can listen to the full conversation that Farm Director Ron Hays had with Bushong on Tuesday evening by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
To learn more about the efforts of Oklahoma State University in promoting winter canola production in the state, click here for the Okanola website.
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