Garry Thiel’s farmyard is three miles north of the original farm of Fred and Olga Solovonuk, the first known producers of rapeseed in Western Canada. The Solovonuks brought rapeseed from their native Poland and in the 1930s they grew the first field crop of rapeseed in Western Canada.

In Thiel’s experience, straight-combined canola yields more and has heavier bushel weight.

Thiel’s father started growing rapeseed in 1948 or ’49. Read the whole story on canoladigest.ca.