canola establishment

[rook]

We've been direct seeding for a number of years now with a Bourgault air drill. Unfortunately we've never gotten even near the canola establishment we've gotten under conventional seeding. Although we've gotten good canola crops, I know they could be better, and it starts with establishment.

This year I'm thinking of harrow packing after seeding. I hate to do another pass, but I think it'll help. Any comments on tricks people have used to get better canola establishment?

[mhartman]

From my experiences with diagnosing poor canola emergence with air drills, the top 3 problems are:

1. Seeding too deep. This is by far the most common problem. Most of the farmers would tell me that they tried to seed 1 inch deep, but when I dug around in the fields, I would find seedlings that failed to emerge from 2 to 3 inches deep. Seeding deeper than intended can happen when the actual depth is not checked in each field; checking seeding depth only in compacted headland soil and thus seeding deeper in softer soil over the rest of the field; seeding too fast which causes soil to be thrown from rear openers onto adjacent rows and thus burying that seed deeper; post-seeding harrowing that drags dirt onto the packed seedrow furrow and thus buries the seed deeper; air drill not levelled from side to side and front to back.

2. Not enough on-row packing behind the air drill opener, especially during dry springs.

3. Too much fertilizer in the seedrow or inadequate separation from the fertilizer band and the seedrow. Remember canola is much more sensitive to seed placed fertilizer than cereals.

[rook]

Thanks for the comments.

[ALLFARMER]

The air seeder I hired last yr. never had on row packing only coil packers behind. I went after with harrow packers and was a little worried after I could see the od blue seed in some places. It ran 32bu/ac, 8 miles away on another field in was not harrow packed and germination and yield was not even comparable.