80 bushel canola yield at Fort Saskatchewan!

[poorboy]

The latest canola magazine that came in shows the praire canola trials and yields. The check canola variety at Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta yielded an incredible 80 bushels per acre.

I am wondering what fertility package a grower has to have to produce a crop that large. Any one that grows crops in that yield range I would like to hear what kind of existing soil fertilizer levels exist and what you would have to add. How would it compare to a wheat or barley fertilizer amount.

Thanks very much.

It just boggles my mind to think of a 650 to 700 dollar return.

[countryguy]

Poorboy don't get too excited about canola trial results.They are not the real world.You could try your darndest to accomplish those results in the field but it would never happen.

[mhartman]

Although variety plots are small plots which tend to yield more than large scale fields, they do give a reasonable idea of variety yields relative to each other.
The high plot yields at Fort Saskatchewan indicate very favourable weather, good fertility and pest control. Actual commercial field yields have also been very high -- some reports in the 70 bu/acre. Sturgeon Valley Fertilizers (780-458-6015)have a yield challenge where they weigh several swaths with a weigh wagon and if I remember correctly, have found yields in the 70 range. Talk with some of their agronomists (Dan Orchard is one) about the yields and corresponding fertility treatment etc.

[countryguy]

Even if yields like this were attainable on a large scale we still wouldn't see an increased profit per acre because we would have canola coming out of our ying yangs.

[poorboy]

Murray,

Are the canola trials done with a target yield in mind. Ie are they maxing out the fertilizer, seeding rate, etc. to promote maximum yields of the varieties in each trial?

If they are, would it be a fair comparison of the same varieties under lower yield targets?

[mhartman]

The trials are managed to obtain good yields -- they are not pushed to achieve maximum yields. They are a decent indicator of relative variety performance. Many canola varieties that yield better than the checks in high yielding trials also yield relatively better under low yielding trials (in other words, the idea of regional adaptation of canola varieties is overblown).

[tman]

In southern Manitoba, where I consult, this past year was a "dry" year. I've worked out in SK and AB, so I've learned that dry and wet are only relative terms. But anyways, there were a couple farmers in the Red River Valley last year that got up to 100 bu/ac of hard red spring wheat, 70 bu/ac of canola, and 160 bu/ac of oats. These were field avereages, not just test strips and grain was scaled. I don't know these farmers so I don't know their fertilizer program, but I have a very good idea of how fertile their soils are. They don't get that every year, but they could if they were to BALANCE their soil nutrients and take care of their deficiiencies. But, as one of my clients said to me, why would we invest in a lot of fertilizer when we're getting the yields that we are, ie making good money by having very powerful, very forgiving soils. This one client of mine has harvested many fields that average 70 bu/ac HRS wheat, 130 bu/ac oats, one year they got over 4000 lbs/ac of beans (twice the area average), etc, etc.

To answer your questions poorboy, you need to start by fertilizing your soils, not your crops, because that's the way that soils and fertlizers work. Whether your fertilizing for canola, wheat, barley, potatoes, saskatoons, whatever, the basics are the same, you just have to fine tune things to match the different soils.

But in order to obtain higher yields, consistently, you need to spend money in the right places. You can't get something for nothing.

[poorboy]

Thanks for the help. I just wanted to know if moisture was my limiting factor in canola production or if it was fertility. I farm in the Dark Brown soils of Alberta and my stubble canola yields are usually in the 18-25 bushel range with the odd 33 bushel crop and the odd disaster such as the latest drought years. I have been applying fertilizer to bring my total soil nutrition up to approximately 150N-50P-1000K-40S by adding 90N-30P-0K-20S. I am just unsure if my yields are lower than the 40 to 70 bushel canola yields that I keep hearing about because I am underfertilizing, and I hate to be wasting money overfertizing.

My HRS wheat yields are usually about 40 bus/ac and malt barley usually yields about 70 bus/ac on average. Is 20 bushel canola about right to match up to my wheat and barley yield?