Freeze Damage

[JDGreen]

So checked some crops out today in the area that we thought were never going to make it and yes they are completely pooched.. Field after field of late seeded lentils that smell like silage this afternoon. Seeds are watery and turning black. Not worth even combining. In fact im not sure what will be done with them. Next start checking dessicated fields of lentils after 6" of rain over 14 days .. Hmm not pretty with sprouts sticking out of the sides of pods and major white and wrinkled seeds. Big yield but crap quality. #3's and high damage imo.. Ok off to inspect durum that was seeded in Early to mid june.. This crap makes #5 for sure if even that. Wheat oh yes im pretty sure its not supposed to be green and laying flat all over the field on Sept. 19th. Off to the flax and am not sure what to make of it. Fields look somewhat brown but still tons of green in them.. Bolls were all completely froze yesterday morning, so imagine that cant be good either. Its going to be interesting as even if the weather changes and we can start harvesting, many crops are weeks away yet from maturity. Gonna have to let the good ole boys in Winterpeg know things are lookin excellent here tomorrow.

[Hopperbin]

I thought things were bad on my farm, canola doing 15, have to pull truck into field and out. No crop ins. Guess there is always someone worse off.

[JDGreen]

actually the crops im describing for the most part aren't mine. Am very fortunate as the order and variety's of seeded crops for me made a huge difference. I have some damage, but it will pale in comparison to others in this area who are screwed.

[fjlip]

Canola seeded June 15 is screwed, watery green seeds, turning white pods. Hope it's an insurance write off. Wheat combined at 20% and dried looks like crap, feed no doubt at 58 lbs. Yield maybe 30 over all, 20% drowned out, now weedy. Wish the rains would have started 3 weeks earlier in May and had zero seeded, hindsight tells me, tried too hard. Insane 2010!

[SASKFARMER3]

Actually your right tried to hard this spring. Should have quit trying after the may long weekend. Yesterday doing Durum finally below 20 and one of the three was stuck at least once an hour all day. At this pace I now need 31 Days to finish. At one point had 1 2 3 all stuck in a row. Highest assessed land in district flat as pancake no trees no sloughs and their we were all in a row. To Klause it sure was a nice picture for the family album. Flax is pouched and so is late oats and late HRS and Canola.

[TOM4CWB]

SF3,

I spoke with Phil Thomas yesterday in Lacombe.

He said: Canola Green seed is not caused by swathing too early; it is caused by frost.

Phil said at 30 percent moisture canola is safe from frost. At 45-50 percent on upper pods... the lower pods are about 30percent moisture. On average it takes about 3-4 days to for top pods to drop down to 30-35percent... where it is basically safe from frost. Yield reduction occurs from early swathing... not green seed.

IMHO Sept 10 should be the drop dead date for Canola... no matter how green it is! Cause Average frost by 15th.

So why doesn't Canola council say this?

[poorboy]

I think Phil is wrong. For years we used to swath our canola at about 5-10% color change on the main stem. Usually a thinner plant count and lots of branches. Crop was still green and lots of leaves on the stems yet. It was a struggle every year to get that green seed count to fall below 5% Often the crop would be dry and we would leave it sit for 3 more weeks to try and get the green out of it.

Today we swath at much more color change and when the seed is dry the green always seems to be gone.

So yes, I think that Phil is correct in that frost can set the green in canola seed, but have no doubt that swathing too early and in the wrong weather conditions will also cause high green.