Issues of the week

Seeding progressed rapidly in the past week across most of the Prairies. Excess dry conditions in some areas have growers wondering whether to seed deeper to reach moisture, and excess rain in others has growers wondering how long seed and seedlings can survive in waterlogged conditions.

Flea beetles are present in some fields. Canola can tolerate 25% to 50% defoliation without a yield effect. This is the economic threshold. It makes economic sense to allow some feeding to occur, plus seed treatments require some feeding to provide control.

Emergence can occur in less than a week with shallow seeding and warm moist conditions. That means a very narrow opportunity for post-seeding pre-emergence weed control. Early in-crop is the next best choice, especially if the field did not get a pre-seed burnoff.

Try the seeding rate calculator: Alberta Agriculture’s seeding rate calculator is not designed specifically for canola, but works if you know target plant density, germination rate, thousand seed weight, percent mortality and row spacing. 

Follow @CanolaWatch on Twitter. We’re 98 away from 2,000 followers. Here’s a tweet we liked this week:

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