Story Posted: July 20, 2011

Canola Watch: Combine Clinic highlights

Issues of the week: The theme this week is the Canola Council of Canada's Combine Clinic - with tips to reduce combine losses. The first article below includes a link to a video interview with Les Hill, the lead off speaker at Combine Clinic. Later this week we will post interviews with representatives from the 5 combine companies present at this week's clinic in Westlock, Alberta.

Hail hit central Alberta and perhaps other parts of the Prairies this week. Canola plants mildly or moderately injured in the early to mid flowering stages seldom die from hail. A well established root system and the ability to develop secondary flower clusters help the plant recover. The plant also develops flowering branches from growth buds lower down on the plant, replacing lost buds, flowers and pods, at least to some degree. Note however that yield potential is unlikely to recover completely and maturity will be delayed, increasing the risk of fall frost damage, especially for fields that were already behind in development.

Sclerotinia lesions are showing up in some early seeded canola. Fungicides have to hit the flower petals before they drop into the canopy. For canola with lesions, growers simply wait to see how much canola will fill before being cut off by the disease. For more on sclerotinia management, see the links down the right side of this email report.

Les Hill's 8 tips to reduce combine losses
Les Hill is the manager of technical services and business development for PAMI in Humboldt, Sask. He led off the Combine Clinic with a presentation on general tips to improve combine performance and reduce harvest losses.

His 8 tips:

1. Feed canola as uniformly as possible into the combine.
2. Avoid over-threshing.
3. Don't assume canola separates easily
4. Initial settings: Adjust fan speed to the point where seed is just beginning to blow over.
5. Initial settings: Open chaffer and sieve settings as wide as you can tolerate.
6. Measure the actual loss out the back of each combine.
7. Travel at speeds that match a level of acceptable loss.
8. Machine losses should be less than 2%, hopefully 1%.

Click here for the video that expands on these tips.
Click here for an article based on Les Hill's presentation.

Combine company reps explain how to reduce losses
For the second half of the Combine Clinic, attendees break into 5 groups and get a hands on presentation from one of 5 combine companies. Click here later this week to hear the following company representatives explain how to reduce combine losses for his brand of combine.

AGCO: Todd Black, combine product specialist for Western Canada
Case IH: Ryan Braun, combine specialist
Claas: David Leitch, regional service manager
John Deere: Darren Seehagel, product support manager for Martin Deerline dealerships
New Holland: Garry McLean, area service manager

Hail at flowering. Now what?
Yield loss from hail will depend on crop stage and severity of the damage. In addition to physical injury, hail damage allows a point of entry for diseases such as alternaria black spot and blackleg to infect canola plants.

Many people wonder about applying crop enhancement products such as fertilizer and micronutrient blends or fungicides on hail-damaged crops. There is little data available on the efficacy of such products under these extreme conditions, so if trying them leave appropriate check strips in order to make an accurate yield comparison at harvest. Fungicides may help reduce the development of diseases but make sure the remaining yield potential warrants protection and conditions remain conducive to disease development. Also consider the possible impact of delayed maturity, as fall frost damage could negate the potential benefits of the fungicide application.

To estimate yield loss, click here and scroll down to Table 7.

How to destroy volunteer canola stands
Unprecedented flooding and excessive soil moisture conditions in 2011 for parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have resulted in an unprecedented number of acres going unseeded. With a record acreage of canola seeded in western Canada in 2010 and harvest losses estimated at 3% to 10%, a large proportion of weeds in those unseeded acres will be volunteer canola. At this point in the growing season, many of those canola plants are coming out of full flower and viable seed is starting to occur.

So what to do now? These plants probably did help draw water out of the soil and may be used as a snow catch stubble for winter cereal planting, but should be destroyed before viable seed is set. Volunteer canola in the field at this point is a weed that could dramatically impact your canola crops in the future, as it may be infected with blackleg or sclerotinia, adding additional inoculum to the field to infect subsequent crops. As well, it could potentially add thousands of viable seeds and resulting plants that you will need to control in the future.

Growers in this situation should spray out volunteer canola and other weeds in the field with an application of glyphosate plus a Group 4 (phenoxy) product or other suitable product. With pollen flow, growers switching systems, shorter rotations of different systems, and of course adventitious presence, never assume a volunteer crop is completely Roundup Ready or Liberty Link or Clearfield. Use more that one herbicide to control the volunteers.

After termination of the weed/canola stand, she suggests seeding a fall planted cereal such as winter wheat or fall rye into the remaining stubble within recommended provincial crop insurance seeding timelines. Alternatively the land could be maintained as chemical fallow for the remainder of the year.

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