Released August 8, 2008
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- With yield potential of 50 to 100 bushels per acre, winter canola may be a good choice for some Montana farmers this year, according to Perry Miller, Montana State University associate professor in land resources and environmental sciences. Winter canola remains an experimental crop in Montana, but it may be worth the gamble in areas where winter wheat survival is consistently very good and where fall irrigation is an option.
Winter canola could be "enormously profitable"' Miller said, and has diverse uses. Unlike oilseeds such as camelina, canola can be used as a food oil crop with high-quality meal for livestock or for biodiesel.
Two years ago Miller watched six farmers test winter canola on their farms and compared their results with canola grown at MSU's Post Research Farm. Though only one of the six farmers had a successful crop, Miller learned several things that should benefit farmers making an attempt at winter canola this year.
The most important factor in winter canola's success is getting the plants to reach a crucial stage of growth and hardiness to survive the winter. The seeds need to be planted early, at a high seeding rate, irrigated to ensure vigorous growth (unless there is a guarantee of one inch of rain during the first week of September), fertilized at seeding, direct seeded in light crop stubble or planted in deep furrows and be the right variety for Montana.
Miller recommends sowing winter canola seeds by Sept. 7 and irrigating at seeding to give them a chance to make sufficiently large seedlings that can survive the winter.
Miller also recommends applying a significant portion--or all--of the intended fertilizer at seeding to give the plants a boost in accumulating as much growth as possible before winter. Two years ago, some farmers used guidelines recommending little fertilizer at seeding, but they were tailored to Kansas farmers and turned out to not be suitable for Montana.
The seeds were also a limitation two years ago.
"They weren't the most winter hardy," said Miller.
Monsanto has two new commercially-available varieties of winter canola seed (DKW 1369 and DKW 41-10) that may be more suitable to Montana's winters than what Monsanto had available in 2006 (DKW 1386). The newly available seeds are Roundup-Ready, meaning the plants are genetically modified to withstand spraying with the broad-spectrum herbicide, Roundup, which will kill weeds.
"I think Roundup-Ready is a critical feature in winter canola at this time so that weeds can be managed simply and effectively in a patchy stand," Miller said.
When visiting the farms that tried winter canola a couple years ago, Miller noticed that even where the crop was not successful, plants were growing in small depressions. He found plants growing in erosion rills, deer tracks and any place the ground subsided a little. Miller suggested sowing this year's seed directly into light crop stubble so sufficient heat is available to advance fall growth--heavy stubble shades the seedlings too much. If sowing into tilled ground it is best to seed half-an-inch deep in the bottom of two to three inches deep V-shaped protective furrows.
"Any kind of depression is important," Miller said, "It provides a microclimate that helps the plant survive."
Two other oilseed crops grew well at the Post Research Farm. Safflower and sunflower, both spring-planted crops, have shown high yields.
Miller especially recommends safflower because it is easy to grow and yielded more than 2,000 pounds per acre at Bozeman despite a record hot and dry July in 2007. Sunflowers require some equipment modifications, but yielded 1,800-2,600 pounds per acre in the test plots, often without any precipitation from the bud stage on.
"The ability of safflower and sunflower to make yield on stored soil water is nothing short of amazing," Miller said.
Like winter canola, both safflower and sunflower can be used for high-quality food oil or as a biodiesel feedstock.
This is probably the final year for Miller's winter canola research at Bozeman, so it is also the last year farmers will be able to compare their results with his, he said. Miller has been looking at the effect of fall irrigation amount, seeding date and rate, and variety on winter canola yield. In 2007, the best combination of all agronomic factors resulted in 80 bushels per acre. Farmers planning on planting any of the three oilseeds Miller is studying are encouraged to contact him.
"That way they can learn from my work and I can learn from them," he said.
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http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6100
Contact: Perry Miller, (406) 994-5431, pmiller@montana.edu
