Time to start seeding...er I mean reseeding

[Koldkanuck]

Well the big boys aroung here are seeding again, or I should say reseeding. One outfit already had to reseed 8,000 acres. They could not get it seeded fast enough to begin with, done 30,000 acres by mid May....hey...were done...look. Canola froze on 3 differant occasions. Old timers don't start until middle of May in this area. One of the Hutterite bosses asked me if it was a good idea to seed canola on canola in early May in this area. I said I wouldn't but its not up to me, so they did. It froze, spotty, but what the hell its only a 2,000 acre block....labor is cheap...DeKalb will give more seed. Other early seeded canola had spotty germination, sitting in dust...then flea beetles started to have lunch. Some guys sprayed, only to have the crop freeze a few days later.
Now we got farmers complaining their Invigor seed has many cracked seeds, and guys had to up their seeding rates. At $650 bucks per bushel, you would think there would be some quality control, but **** it, the farmer will just suck it up. When you need close to 40 bushels an acre just to break even, the "Cinderella Crop" don't look to charming. Canola for a cash crop is getting to be a myth. In over 45 cropping years, I've seen this type of year before. Cool and dry spring, usually get a killing frost in 3rd week of Aug. Early seeded crops like wheat, cereals and others that took the last few frosts will be fine, but reseeded canola now will just be toast if it freezes on Aug.24 or so, at least in this area. Good luck fellas.

[jake550]

And that'll more your day, won't it?

[MBgrower]

Canola is the true CASH crop. It takes more cash to grow it than any other. This cinderella is more like a high priced escort.

[bluefargo]

In a previous life I looked at hundreds of fields damaged by frost or just poor emergence for various reasons. It became apparent to me that it seldom paid to reseed especially if it got late. Of course every situation is different.
Often when I checked back with farmers later on the year they were usually thankful they didn't reseed. Or conversely regretted reseeding.
Guys would sometimes leave part of the field and reseed part. 9 times out of 10 or more they wished they had left it. Usually the crop you've got is better than the one you might get.

[SASKFARMER3]

I agree blue we once long long time ago got into a big pissing match with a company over seed placement etc. Canola was thin oh so thin and sick that year it didn't rain till the July 1 or around and that was a first real soaker.
In the end we went to the top 10 producers in the area and compared yields believing that our thin stands would be way less.
Ah 9 of the 10 we won one we lost.
So I agree its june first and reseeding will take time and take money and take a long time to poke out of dry dirt so maybe just have a sicker looking crop that you chat about all summer and maybe it will give you a reward.
Time will tell but from my experience go fishing.

[bluefargo]

SF3 Yes I saw some unbelievably thin crops that had great yields come fall. I spent a lot of time some years trying to convince guys to leave their thin stands. I do remember a few farmers who just couldn't stand looking at a field that didn't have nice little rows. And there were a few cases where guys said they were glad reseeded. So I guess you never know. But these cases were few and far between.

[farmaholic]

My concern with thin stands is not having adequate stubble to anchor a swath to. Sometimes those thin crops have plants that resemble tumbleweeds and branch low or have the branches hanging low resulting in having to cut low..... not trying to be a Negative Ninny but I've seen it.

There are ideals, but not attainable every year.

[SASKFARMER3]

You do lose the stubble to anchor but if the other doesn't make it no big deal.
It's a huge decision that we always struggled with. Glad I so far don't have to reseed.

[bgmb]

You should take a drive saskfarmer, crops that you could see rows from the sprayer are nothing now

[agchat]

Funny my dad would say "Only a desperate man reseeds."

[riders2010]

It will vary from field to field and area to area, if you are in an area that had great moisture all of your canola was up and ia likely all toast or perhaps just low land all toast. If you are like us we were dry so some canola came up some didn t the low land mostly did but its likely all gone, so there is not one suit to fit all in this situation. The last time we froze the guys that left it had 25 bushels the guys that reseeded had just over 30 so who was right?

[furrowtickler]

just a little heads up on how severe this frost hit some fields . Crops ins - out of 42 plants per there square - 2 showed any life and that was a good spot , 50% of areas were zero - as in *** all dried up pinched off dead. Nothing is ever generalized guys, come on. 80% of the time yes leave it but I have seen total wipe outs before and this is one of them for some guys. there is no regrowth and perfect stands are gone - zip zero left but pinched off stems.

[furrowtickler]

Now half of that just got flooded and is under 1 inch of mud - wow do I love this "normal" fukin weather

[seabass]

This ain't no 98. Way worse. Even burnt ground is buggered. Too cold for too many hours.

[sawfly]

no rain here yet, so there are still seeds to come.
what is there , probably 1 in 4 is froze dead.

lots of cutworms, thinnish stand, but still some to work with.
even with a rain, there will be 3 weeks
difference in maturity if those seeds come

lots could go right from here and a lot could go wrong.
need a rain for a start.
kinda pointless to do anything at this point without it..

yes i remember the 1 year when reseeding worked perfect.

I also remember a lot more years of frozen green canola.

mine is all RR , so at least i can keep it clean cheaply no matter how ugly.