Walter Paszkowski’s parents emigrated to Canada from Poland and they knew rapeseed well. It was a popular crop in Poland for vegetable oil and animal feed. When Paszkowski started growing rapeseed on the family’s Sexsmith farm, his father was afraid it would become a significant new weed in the area. But by then farmers had herbicides that could control the “weed” in cereal crops.

Rapeseed was well suited to the growing conditions in the Peace region, but growers soon discovered that varieties were not strong against a disease called brown girdling root rot. Part of the problem was rotation, Paszkowski says. The rotation on their farm and many others in the area included fescue, and fescue was also a host crop for the pathogen. Read the whole story on canoladigest.ca.