CanolaCouncil.org; Horrid advice

[BlueCollarMan]

Has anyone ever read the garbage on this website? Have these people ever actually been out of the lab?

“With early seeded canola, be ready to apply an insecticide to control early season flea beetles.”

“Seeding early may actually reduce the overall frost risk since spring stands severely damaged by frost still have ample time to recover or to be reseed”

“Slow growing canola crops will also be more vulnerable at the seedling stage to weed competition”

Oh yeah you want to sow your canola early but yeah be ready to spray decis and double application of liberty and RESEED because that’s no big deal right?

“Seeding after the third week of May puts canola at higher risk for fall frost losses.”

They mention “fall frost losses” like 18 times.

Has anyone even remotely heard of this? Have you ever heard your neighbor say “oh yeah that september frost just hosed our canola, wiped it right out”



This website literally lays out every argument as to why you should never even think about sowing canola before like May 20th and then tells you to do it.

[redleaf]

Has anyone ever read the garbage on this website? Have these people ever actually been out of the lab?

“With early seeded canola, be ready to apply an insecticide to control early season flea beetles.”

“Seeding early may actually reduce the overall frost risk since spring stands severely damaged by frost still have ample time to recover or to be reseed”

“Slow growing canola crops will also be more vulnerable at the seedling stage to weed competition”

Oh yeah you want to sow your canola early but yeah be ready to spray decis and double application of liberty and RESEED because that’s no big deal right?

“Seeding after the third week of May puts canola at higher risk for fall frost losses.”

They mention “fall frost losses” like 18 times.

Has anyone even remotely heard of this? Have you ever heard your neighbor say “oh yeah that september frost just hosed our canola, wiped it right out”



This website literally lays out every argument as to why you should never even think about sowing canola before like May 20th and then tells you to do it.

Not really sure what you are saying there Blue. Pretty typically in our area earliest seeded canola is worst for flea beetles. I myself have had my canola badly frozen both in spring and fall (seldom both in one year but I think that might have happened too).

[furrowtickler]

They are pretty much spot on with early seeded canola and flea Beatles, regardless of current seed treatments.
90% of the time canola seeded end of April into the first week of May gets very high flea beatle pressure because of slow growth .
As far as September frost , well I will guarantee there was a lot of damage that will show up on later seeded and delayed maturity canola after this mornings frost.
Seeding canola mid May still produces best results year in and year out unless you are in SW sask or far southern Alberta.
I have seen several canola crops wiped out in September.

[Manfarmer20]

Maybe if we had a good seed based flea beetle contoll we would not have to spray post emergent and kill all their precious bumble bees in late may early june!

[BlueCollarMan]

They are pretty much spot on with early seeded canola and flea Beatles, regardless of current seed treatments.
90% of the time canola seeded end of April into the first week of May gets very high flea beatle pressure because of slow growth .
As far as September frost , well I will guarantee there was a lot of damage that will show up on later seeded and delayed maturity canola after this mornings frost.
Seeding canola mid May still produces best results year in and year out unless you are in SW sask or far southern Alberta.
I have seen several canola crops wiped out in September.

What I am saying is yes, they are spot on with early seeding and flea beetle pressure.

My point is that they still say to seed your canola as early as possible. Why would they suggest this? Some quotes from the website:

"Early-seeded canola crops tend to produce higher yield and quality"

BS. Everyone knows their best canola crops have come after they re seeded them on about June the 1st. There is a reason for this! Comes out of the ground like lightning and flowers during the cool August evenings!

"Plan to seed canola when soil temperatures are at least 5°C"

INSANE! Have you felt the ground when the soil is 5C? It's basically FROZEN. This is CRIMINALLY bad advice.

"From the second week of May onward growers may need to take advantage of good field conditions for seeding regardless of temperatures."

This essentially means they suggest you should be seeding canola on May 8th into 5 Celsius soil. Absolutely trash advice. MASC (Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation) should BAN farmers from visiting this website. How many MILLIONS of dollars have they dished out over the years to farmers seeding into 5C soil and having the bugs, wind, and frost **** their crops. It's unbelievable that this is actual advice on a supposedly reputable source of a website.

Seeding canola into cold wet ground is asking for trouble with flea beetles, frost, wind, etc. This is the Canola Council of Canada, a highly funded organization. They should have recommended starting seeding dates for every region of Canada based on latitude.

I am in southern Manitoba and if you are seeding canola before May 15th you are absolutely crazy. There is literally no benefit to it. If you're up further north obviously you have greater chance of September frosts. If that's the case you need to be looking at earliest maturing canola or maybe even different earlier maturing crops entirely.

What I was trying to say is their end suggestions don't line up with the evidence they present on the website. Everything they say screams seed your canola later for less headache.

Later seeded canola into nice warm soil pops out of the ground and gets past the vulnerable stage much faster than in cold soils where it can sit in that vulnerable stage for a week and a half. A lot of times farmer impatience is the reason for early seeding and I am absolutely shocked the website doesn't warn against this fear. Just because it's a dry spring and you got your wheat and oats in the ground in late April does NOT mean you should immediately start sowing canola because "conditions are good" or "the moisture is there". Moisture actually HURTS you if the ground is cold rotting your seed and when it does grow a half inch tall the YOU NAME IT can come destroy it.

To me it's fundamentally worth the risk waiting until at least mid May even if you think the moisture will be too far down to seed into by then. You can always seed down to just above the moisture and wait for a rain. In this case the canola is sitting in dry dirt not rotting, and should start evenly the next time you get enough rain to "meet the moisture" and a light 2 tenth rain won't get down enough to start "some" of it to cause uneven maturity. To those that say what happens if it never rains? I say then you are absolutely screwed either way if that actually happens. Even on dry years you still get at least ONE half inch rain at some point after may 15th or so.

My point is these lab rats need to give some better practical advice on the website.

(Oops liked my own comment can't undo)