If I here or read one more time "excellent growing conditions" I'm going to puke!

[ALLFARMER]

Holidaying from High Level to Falher to
Lloydminister to Rose Town to Medicine Hat to
Lethbridge to now Calgary over all crops look
pretty damb good. Was only plus 7 in Lethbridge
last night.

[ALLFARMER]

O ya looks like the boys in Falher have the
Canola on Canola figured out now. Looks like 75
per cent planted yellow.

Rosetown wheat looks just past heading out. Zero
in the seeds yet. Some Canola at Raymond was
totally yellow yet! Some canola in La Crete/High
level done flowering. Thought the south was
always first???

[sumdumguy]

Our rule of thumb - if lentils arent 2/3 podded by
July 17, then they start the regrowth and turn into
excellent hay. They really need hot, dry stress to
finish off. Early Mustard here is starting to turn.
That may make it, but overall other crops better
get some serious heat.

[highwayman]

Cutting canola here in 2 weeks or less I suspect.
Seeded may 8-12. Cosidering leaving some
stand for straight cutting. Heavy well knitted stand
laying over badly. Top pods fully formed, filled and
can just about roll between fingers. Yield estimate
at this point looks to be well above average. Early
durum (brigade) is full and turning. Later durum
still filling. Both show promise. LG lentils podded
well and still flowering. Need heat to shut them
down. Reds podded well and showing signs of
turning. Chickpeas podded but very slow filling,
still flowering, might be in for a wreck on that one
without some heat soon.
Anyone with canola straight cutting experience I
would appreciate your input.

[freewheat]

DAVE 4441!!! Tell me about the cool
weather for canaryseed???? What do you
mean by this? Just wondering, as I have
some nice looking canaryseed, and it has
been cool...

TIA.

[JDGreen]

Hiwaydude, Straight cutting canola on a heavy
stand won't be quite as much fun as you think. If
its RR then forget it. If its invigor or clear field I
would dessicate it with glypho so you get some
stem dry down. Green material wrapped around
your front feed accelerator is ZERO fun. Only
canola I ever had heat came off straight cut fields,
just doesn't stabilize properly.. It feeds like shit on
a d****r when its fully ready to cut, had much
better luck with a full finger auger head and then
the shelling is retarded both ways. On a dry
hotter year I would consider straight cutting again,
this year NO WAY!!!! Knock it down. I would be
waiting till Xmas to straight cut canola this year.
Would really piss me off If i missed turkey dinner
Xmas day and had to straight cut canola. I can
hardly imagine your canola could be ready in 2
weeks as I don't think we are too far apart. Mine
was seeded may10-13 and still flowering
somewhat. That means 4-5 weeks yet maybe
longer.

[highwayman]

Appreciate your thoughts JD. Some in this area
have experimented with straight cutting canola in
the past with limited success however with much
poorer stands then what we have this year. Main
issue was severe shelling do to wind with poorly
knitted stands. Fellow I know of 20 minutes north
of swift current straight cuts 3-4000 acres of
canola each year with desiccation. Seems to
work well for him but as you mentioned maybe not
so much this year. I'm still ridin the fence on this
one.
I would estimate that there is roughly 90 miles as
the crow flies separating our farms as we are
south east of your location. I've driven by your
area often this summer and your areas crop
development does seem to be lagging behind
ours for whatever reason never the less both
areas have huge yield potential After extensive
field scouting we chose not to apply fungicide to
our canola so this may have contributed to its
current level of maturity. We've had a wet growing
season but precipitation was most concentrated
late may early June. Spotty 1/2inch showers
scattered here and there over the last month with
few heavier events. Time will tell if we should
have sprayed or not.
L150 invigor canola pod set seems to be very
good. Bottom pod seeds very firm on the verge of
color change while top pod seed just a little soft
yet. I may be a little agressively optimistic with my
two week estimate but based on growing canola
in this area since 1990, not by much.

[Hopperbin]

Just had a tour to waskesue past Lake Lenore north to P.A. then had the pleasure to do extra crop touring as highway 2 north of P.A. was under water. Lots of Canolas, but was perplexed of the variety of crop quality from field to field what is up with it. One field looks 50 bushel, the next one right beside maybe 15 to 20. All in full bloom same stage. Quality all over the map. Major canola growing region. Any one know what is happing with those canola crops? Wheat was generally excellent. Barley also variable. Maybe its the continuous cropping of canola getting to those bad looking fields.

[riders2010]

Same thing here with canola, depends on what day you seeded and how many days before the next big rain came, if your canola was up, how big it was when it rained again, etc etc. If you just seeded and it rained hard you have poor canola to start and all the way through if it kept raining, if canola managed to be up and you received the rain it is better.

[SASKFARMER3]

That's exactly what I am saying. Canola is all over the map. If the soil was to cold its putz if it was to wet problems then problems again if rain came to soon after. Then do sweet f*CK all different and a mile away its a 50 plus. I have some new canola I call it Semi Dwarf. Podded ok but its only three feet tall. Neighbour has same variety that's almost 5ft tall but only podded the same. Seeded three days after a half inch rain in spring.
Again the experts blow Canola up but its the Idiot sister that is all over the map. Were paying way to much for seed on this crop. We use to buy UGG seed or Pioneer before all the super varieties got nice big seed with a great seed treatment and had great yields. Now you get no fricking consistence. Three fields side by side seeded on three different days and bam, every where from shit to wow you really know what your doing.