How many canola plants do you need?

The new target plant stand and seeding rate calculators at canolacalculator.ca will help determine the correct plant stand for an individual field.

When entering farm, field and seed data into the calculator, note that a spring canola stubble count cross-referenced with 2016 yields can hint at target populations that work best for the farm. Some growers will also have the actual thousand seed weights (TSW) for their seed lots.

The calculator is a good way to demonstrate how TSW can influence seeding rate in pounds per acre. If for example, growers have seed with a high TSW, it will require more pounds per acre to achieve the same plant population as lighter seed. So what to do? Buy more seed? Take other measures to make sure most of those high-TSW seeds emerge?