Topics for May 19, 2021

Canola Counts, the new crowd-sourced survey from the Canola Council of Canada (CCC), is now live at CanolaCounts.ca. The survey will map canola plant densities and emergence across the prairies in the spring and fall.

How can you participate in Canola Counts? It’s easy, mobile-friendly, and only takes about 60 seconds to input data: 

1) Take several plant counts across a canola field to get an average number of plants per square metre or square foot. 

2) Visit CanolaCounts.ca.   

3) Enter field info including average plant density and let the tool calculate emergence.  

4) Share summary email with partners, clients or staff. 

5) Review end of season maps to see how your fields measure up to regional norms.  

 Each field entered at CanolaCounts.ca is a chance to win weekly gift cards Prizes will go to the users who enter the most fields in each Prairie province. 

On many regions of the Prairies, frost can occur at virtually any point in the growing season. This creates a constant worry among canola and other crop producers. Not surprisingly, most growers’ first question after a spring frost is “Did the crop survive?”. Like many ag-related questions, the answer is “It depends.” This article offers some tips on when and how to determine the damage and  whether you should re-seed. Another common question post-frost is when to resume weed control. Read this Canola Watch article for some rules of thumb. 

The window between seeding and emergence is critical for early season weed control, especially if weeds are starting to emerge and seeded canola is taking a long time to emerge. In some cases, a  pre-emergence spray may be required. A common method is to combine two or more compatible crop protection products (often glyphosate with a tank mix partner). This post-seeding spray can be particularly useful if a grower missed a pre-seed burnoff due to unfavourable environmental conditions. However, there is usually a small window available for post-seeding/pre-emergence spraying, so timing is everything. More information is available here under “Post-seeding/pre-emergence spray window.” 

Depending on when you seeded your canola, percentage of plants emerged and your location, your crop may have already been a victim or may be at risk to damage from early-season crop insects such as flea beetles and cutworms. Hitting a target stand of five to eight plants per square foot will sometimes require sprays to protect young plants from these pests. How to assess leaf area loss from flea beetles can help you determine if your flea beetle population has reached the action threshold of 25 per cent or more (watch this short video for a refresher on thresholds), while this article can help you make timely scouting and spray decisions for cutworms.