Agricultural News
Harvest of a Short Crop of Canola Underway in Southern Plains
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 21:50:03 CDT
Canola harvest is underway, and as expected, yields are coming up short in 2014. The Executive Director of the Great Plains Canola Association, Dr. Ron Sholar, talked with Lyndal Stout of SUNUP on Wednesday about canola crop conditions. Farm Director Ron Hays has an overview of those comments in a special audio report that you can hear by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
Dr. Sholar told Stout that the 2014 crop will be a short crop, because of less than half of normal rainfall was seen across the entire winter wheat/winter canola belt in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Lack of rain from December through April took its toll even as the crop in many cases waited on rainfall that never came.
Sholar does not believe that this year's problems will derail continuing interest in canola, saying the value as a rotational crop with winter wheat to break the weed cycle in wheat got many farmers interested in canola, and it's ability to be a profitable crop will be a key factor in the number of acres to continue to increase. Dr. Sholar points to the Northstar Canola processing plant to be built in Enid over the next couple of years as evidence that the infrastructure is continuing to be developed to support increases in acres for several years to come.
While many of those acres will not be harvested in 2014, over 400,000 acres were planted in the southern plains last fall, and that number will continue to grow in future growing seasons. Dr. Sholar states the obvious when he says "I like to say this is not Iowa in terms of our weather- we have to deal with what we have. That's why we do so well with winter crops like wheat and canola- summer crops don't fare as well here." And he concludes that he believes that farmers and the agribusiness community will continue to build out the winter canola industry in the years ahead.
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