Fertility Management

Tips to improve safety of seed-placed fertilizer

Key result: Farmers can increase the seed safety of higher phosphorus rates by increasing seed bed utilization (narrower rows or wider openers) and applying only phosphorus (not nitrogen or sulphur) fertilizer in the seed row. Current recommendations for safe rates of seed-placed phosphorus (P) recommendations are based on one configuration: 1” opener and 9″ row...

Integrated Pest Management

Updated lygus threshold of 2-3 per sweep

Key result: This study validates a new threshold for lygus in canola. The general pattern is that abundances below two lygus per sweep do not reduce yield. Thus, the threshold of two to three lygus per sweep (20-30 per 10 sweeps) is recommended. Because current canola cultivars appear to tolerate lygus damage better than older...

Integrated Pest Management

Biodiversity from non-crop areas can boost beneficials, possibly yield

Key result: Non-crop areas within or near to fields can serve as a source and a destination for beneficial insects at different times of the season. A correlational study of 60 million seeded acres of yield data obtained from Agricultural Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) showed that counties in Alberta where fields tend to contain more...

Integrated Pest Management

Diverse weed management can protect herbicide efficacy

Key result: Effective herbicides remain a critical part of integrated weed management. Steps taken now to increase diversity in the management strategy, while herbicides are still effective, is crucial to maintaining control of weed populations in the long term. Herbicide resistance is increasing in Western Canada and around the world. While herbicides are still mostly...

Science

New and Ongoing Projects

New studies launched in the past year are exploring biologicals for nitrogen fixation and insect management, phenology-based weed control, and new techniques to breed for blackleg resistance. Canola farmers across the Prairies fund many of these projects through their levy payments to SaskCanola, Alberta Canola and Manitoba Canola Growers. Some are funded through the Canola AgriScience Cluster, a partnership between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the canola industry under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP).