Winter Canola in Western Canada

Unlocking New Opportunities for Yield, Soil Health, and Farm Resilience 

Winter canola has long been a cornerstone of European crop rotations – but can it succeed in the demanding conditions of Western Canada? In this episode, Saskatchewan farmer Marcel Van Staveren joins agronomist Anton Stadler and Lucas Horsch of HORSCH, LLC to discuss the first steps of bringing winter canola to the Canadian Prairies. From harsh winters and limited rainfall to root development, nutrient placement, weed pressure, and soil health, the conversationexplores both the challenges and the opportunities. Along the way, they compare North American and European farming practices, sharing practical insights into what it takes to build more resilient and productive cropping systems. 

The video of the talk and additional information can be found at

https://www.horsch.com/us/studio

Guest and host:

Marcel van Staveren
Marcel is a farmer from southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, where he operates a diversified grain farm in the Canadian Prairies. Passionate about innovation and regenerative agriculture, Marcel focuses on practices that improve soil health, water use efficiency, and long-term farm resilience, including direct seeding, stripper headers, cover crops, and diversified crop rotations. 

Anton Stadler
Anton is an agricultural consultant at N.U. Agrar, advising farmers in Southern Germany, Ukraine, and Romania. As the company's Lead Specialist for Corn, his areas of expertise include row crops, variety evaluation, fertilization, and crop protection.

Host: Lucas Horsch
Lucas is CEO of HORSCH North America and a farmer with a background in agricultural innovation. Before relocating to North Dakota in 2023, he managed HORSCH's research and development farm in the Czech Republic and led the company's planter research and development.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The winter canola thing is very intriguing. The night we flew here to Germany, to Agrotechnica, we had a fresh layer of snow, which might provide a bit of an insulation barrier because we hit minus 18 Celsius. Minus 18. Minus 18. So that's uh that's a hostile environment for this winter canola program. However, we did receive two or three inches of snow cover in that tall residue, so that might have protected. We'll see. We probably lost two-thirds of our plant population. I think we're we've we're down to a third.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

In Europe, that's not unheard of in winter canola. Okay. So hello everyone. Uh my name is Lucas Horsch. I'm today here in the podcast studium again. I'm a passionate farmer, and today we have Anton and Marcel with me. Um I think we can directly start with with Anton. Maybe you introduce yourself and then we come to you too, Marcel, and uh and talk a little bit about winter canola and maybe in Canada, maybe in the future, maybe it's the future. We will see.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, hello together. My name is Anton Stadler. I'm a consultant for NUAGRA, a European consultants company. I'm an agronomist and also a farmer. And um I'm consulting in Germany, southern and northern part of Germany, and also in the southern and um eastern part of Europe, um, in especially in in Ukraine and also Romania, Slovakia, and so on.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

And you even said you were in Kazakhstan.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Yes, um, maybe five, six years before. Um, it was a project um with young students there, and it is really close to Canada, I think so, and I'm curious to speak with you and you about winter canola in uh Canada.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

So, Marcel, please introduce yourself. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Marcel Van Stavran. I farm in uh southeast Saskatchewan, so we're in the Western Canadian uh agriculture marketplace on the on the what we call the prairies. Um, we're just north of Montana or North Dakota of the United States, so that kind of gives you some geography. I guess we'd be defined as being in the moist, dark brown soil zone. So so we're in an area that typically gets about 12 inches of annual precipitation through snow and rainfall.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

So yeah, 300 millimeters. Yeah, roughly is it 300 millimeters? I guess so, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, somebody did warn me once they'll beware of the law of averages. So sometimes it's eight inches, sometimes it's 20 some inches, and uh but the long-term averages is the 12 or 13. Yeah, yeah. So we have a very tight growing season in our region, and that's that's important for today's conversation, likely. Yeah, so uh yeah, we're uh we're we're always excited to uh search out opportunity opportunities or being opportunistic in looking at new crops or new opportunities to grow throughout a different growing season or growing cycle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Coming to your point to this 20 mil 20 20 inches rainfall in a year. I was in 2012. I was in I was there as a as a as an not apprenticeship, but as a as a not a student, how you how you call it in English, as a training. I just as a trainee, yeah. So I was there for a couple of months in um an Esteban. Yes, close close to my close to my deal, and at that time it was pre-wet.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah. Yeah, you were very close to my farm too, then and uh like like in 2011 we only got four percent of our farm seeded, so that was one of those uh in that was 2011. 2012 was moist enough from that carryover, but uh yeah. Yeah, we can have we've witnessed some extremes for sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

That it was an interesting year, you know. We were using an an air drill with an air cart on the back, with uh a powered air cart where we pushed everything through the sluice and everything, and yes, yeah, it was tactically an overshoot, I would call it maybe. But it was interesting. It was interesting to learn how it works.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, for sure. So so you know, like our area, we've been um innovating towards direct seeding and and uh what we had called uh no-tail agriculture, but but uh you know, other academics would have different words for that in terms of uh how much soil disturbance we were still experiencing and and or carrying out, and others critical in soil biology would say, Hey, you're still you're still affecting your soil biology a little bit too much. Um I want to recite Dr. Duane Beck and his analogy about uh uh tying uh air drills versus dist drills. So nonetheless, we're we're evolving our farm here lately, by the way, to better manage those uh that annual 12 inches of total moisture event between snow and rain. We're we're implementing more um dist drills, we'll be fully dist drills for 2026 to to better align ourselves with the biological community of uh of of creating a more resilient soil and less disturbance. And then uh we're also bringing in stripper headers, so we're using uh we're we're leaving a tall stubble environment in uh in uh 60 percent of our acres, and um, so we're getting a lot of harvest efficiency out of that, but most importantly slowing down the wind and reducing evaporation from our uh from the soil and transpiration off our young plants by establishing crops in that tall stubble environment.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Uh okay. Yes. So what what are you doing on that other 40%?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, so so like we are still growing a pulse or legume crop like lentils, so that's uh very short statured uh uh 10 inches or 12 inches or 30 centimeter crop that we need to still so we remove all the plant material to harvest it effectively. We're still learning how to manage the uh or still seeking opportunities to uh strip canola, and and we're gonna have a very active group next year to try to determine better timing in that uh and try to create see if that opportunity could exist. Our varieties have improved, but uh there still could be massive header loss with a stripper header.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

But we're we're gonna see if we can manage that through some other Katie, can you help me to understand the stripper stripper thing? My my my father, I I just talked to him a couple of days about uh ago what stripper headers, because my father used to we used to sell stripper headers in in in Europe for a short amount of time, very short amount of time. But um we we haven't found a real real benefit or whatever. But but but in the end, um I'm not very biased. I'm just very interested how how does it work? Do you have a lot of losses or not? Or how and which crop type does it work?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, so I'll back up just a little bit. So yeah, our our crop base on our farm were probably about 30% canola on our farm. Uh we'd be about uh 15 or 20 percent uh lentil. Okay, and another 30% would be Durham wheat for uh pasta and macaroni spaghetti. And uh we we also brought flax back to our farm this year. Oh, and uh so the flax ended up being about 15% of the farm. And and then um yeah, so those were we had we uh canary seed as well, which is a kind of I call it a grass, and not everybody calls it a grass, but we uh we can strip that material too.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

This seems to be working well, I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So yeah, like and and so because of the stripper header, we were unafraid to come back to it. We had a 17-year sabbatical, we haven't grown flax since 2008. So uh so we're excited to be back into flax.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Uh we think that the stripper header and the disc drill is opportunistic for us. It's the straw management, and we're excited to leave all the straw standing, not trying to process that material through our combines, and it's very aggressive or difficult sometimes to handle. So now we're it's just beautiful to harvest flax. Like, like, but yes, we have to continue to manage uh through best management practices and through through uh like to minimize header loss, it's an ongoing uh challenge. However, the Kool-Aid I'm drinking, uh Lucas, in in in this regenerative space is trying to establish more living roots in our soil. Okay, it doesn't mean we've got to get sloppy and be sloppy in terms of header loss and and what's acceptable. We need to manage that as well as we can. We hope and we try to keep our header losses below one bushel per acre or you know, 50, 60 pounds an acre. However, we we now smile when we have some header loss and we see some uh green vegetative growth in our soil because we understand, hey, you know what, that isn't so bad to have a green carpet or uh lawn growing in our in our field uh to freeze up. And uh so we in fact this year did plant quite a bit of cover crops on our lentils. We're harvesting as early as August, and it's like, why should those fields be bare for the next two months? Why shouldn't there be some living uh roots in there? We we tend to get some losses in the lentil stubble, like the lentil crop. So some of those seeds come, but now we supplement that with a little more um um mycorrhizae crop like uh like oats, so we'll just plant a very light rate of oats to help establish some cover crop. So so I always want to make that it it's helping me to have a bit of a tolerance to some header loss, but we are we are very much on top of that and trying to minimize loss.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Interesting. It's it's it would be a little bit uh the opposite side how how we would think about it sometimes here here in Europe. But in the end, it's it's a different way of thinking. Don't know if it's right or wrong.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So so you know, one of the one of the um uh uh opportunities that we've seen, we were running seven combines and now we're down to five. And oh yeah, plus our farm is growing by over 10% in the last uh 14 months. Also, so so uh because we're we're running those tripper headers, our our fuel consumption is is reduced by 35 percent, that's obvious, without processing straw. Yeah, and then ultimately we're we're we're we're uh our combines are moving that much faster. So we're yeah, we're going six, seven miles an hour versus four or five miles an hour. So we're every hour, every day, each combine's doing that much more work. So the the driver in the seat does his productivity just went up 50 percent. 50. 50, yes, yes. We're we're getting 25 acres an hour with our stripper header versus 18 acres an hour with our uh 45 foot draper compared to the 42-foot.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

So, what would be the daily output of one combine?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, so we're getting uh well at 25 uh acres an hour at uh on a 10 acre 10 hour day rather would be 250 acres. Yeah, so we're getting two of our combines with stripper headers are doing the work of three with the draper header where you're processing all the straw.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Okay, 100 hectares a day. Yeah, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

But but our production isn't uh, of course, what you guys can experience out here uh necessarily at all.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

So what would be your wheat yield just as yeah, like like this year we average sixty bushels an acre in our derm.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

So 60 would be uh like uh that would be 150 bushels per hectare, and or uh divided by four, like it's under 60 bushels.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

I have I have my conversion stuff. Four tons.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Four tons hectare. So yes. That's that's pretty good. That's not too bad. It it uh but you know what? We yeah, so we we we we obviously we know under irrigation uh situation or or further darker soils that are to the north of us, but especially your your growing season is very short.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

So yes, it's it's logical, but but still four tons, it's it's incredible. Because because if you compare it to Kazakhstan, there's not a lot of guys doing four tons. No, okay. So they do more like two and two point five. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

And one year ago, however, we were into that three three ton, like we had a drier, a drier year a year ago, so we can play from three to four. Um, our long-term average is is uh probably three and a half. So you know, this was our 2025 is one of the best crops we've ever grown. So we're pretty excited about some of our direction to pivoting here with stripper headers and disc drills. And I want to compliment uh Lucas here and and the Horsch family who brought us our first uh disc drill. It was a Horsch Avatar. So we had a nice pleasant opportunity to to uh work for the disc drill and get to see what we're missing, and or uh and then that's continued our evolution towards stripper headers and uh managing our microenvironment for our crop.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Yeah, so what is so when you when when you are planting your crop, so what was your you canola yields yields this year?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, so this year we are 51 bushels an acre. Uh so that would be down to that three and a half ton or something uh per hectare, maybe. 50 bushels? Yeah, like so yeah, well, we're over one ten an acre, uh one ton an acre at 51 bushels, uh 1.2 something or something, and so that would be uh yeah, it'd be around three ton, wouldn't it? Per hectare.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Sorry, I just need to look it up in my my I have a conversion app. No, I have a conversion because rapeseed is a little bit uh different. So 50 bushel?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Uh 2.7 uh 2.8 okay. Yeah, yeah. That's that's incredible for spring canola. Yes. We even us on our farm, we I think we did 2.8 or 3 tons. We get a lot of you know insect pressure here in Europe, more and more, because over the years we we put a lot of you know a very tight rotation. So we had farms doing every two years canola, winter canola, or maybe every three years winter canola. And I don't know how you see it. Is this is the tendency changing now in Europe that we are getting to a little bit longer rotation?

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Yes, I think um crop rotation uh will bring a lot of solutions, positive solutions for us. And um at least um two more uh farms uh works with um three or four years between uh canola. And um it's the best way, in my opinion, because of uh the political frame. We uh lost a lot of uh chemicals, yeah. Um lost a lot of chemicals and so on. And uh for example, neonix, yes, and also uh resistance um development is crucial for us. So um we need to look for best crop rotation first of all, and then comes to the next um steps. What do we try to improve?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, you know, and and and from the space that I've been working in, starting to understand how how too much brassica can lead to higher bacterial soils and lower fungal, uh, as it doesn't associate well at all with mycorrhizae. Yes. So and we're starting to really understand the power of mycorrhizae as we watch trees grow on mountainsides and start to understand how they can extract uh roots or soil, uh sorry, nutrients out of the soil or rocky soil from uh mycorrhizae helping acidify and release nutrients and that sort of sort of thing. So too much uh brassica isn't good for that reason either. So um we're trying to watch it in Western Canada. There's a lot of canola uh cereal, canola cereal. So every two years and three years, and and we've been doing a little of that ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Sometimes you have canola, snow, canola. Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. I've I've heard that a couple of times. Not a couple of times, but some from some farms. But it looks like that there's still a tendency to have an intense canola rotation, yeah. So I don't know how long it will go. Hopefully it goes long, but for us in Europe we we see well, I don't know since how many years we're doing canola. Every four or five five years. Yeah, so now we change to four to five, yeah, on our farms as well. So what we are seeing sorry, um but but I think let's let's maybe dive a little bit into our topic today, winter canola in Canada. Yes. And um we would like to understand what what what did you do? How did you manage to get there, or what what do you what was your intent there?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Mm-hmm. Well, it you know, in in Western Canada, we're quite excited about canola overall, and and because and and we've shown that by the intensity of our canola production, like we just spoke of. And but what we're seeing, of course, is a significant seismic shift towards more canola processing, value-added processing in Western Canada. So we have a new local crush plant from Cargill, a major American um uh processor, yeah, that uh is just launching and opening up their their uh canola crush plant. So we're we're seeing that investment, we're seeing the existing players doubling their processing capabilities.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

So, you know, we we want to be sensitive to uh doing great things with oil seeds and with canola in particular, or rapeseed. And so we're we're excited to um uh look at other uh opportunities. So the winter canola thing is very intriguing from a perspective of uh maximizing use of our seeding equipment and and andor from the side of keeping living root in our soil longer into the fall by establishing a new crop in the in the late summer. Yes, and then uh because of that 12 or 13 inches per year of annual precipitation, hey, sometimes it comes early, sometimes it comes late. Yes, and so by growth planting crops, including winter wheat or fall rye, we also participate in those crops uh when when the opportunity comes. And um, so then uh yeah, it it's a it's a risk uh it's a uh risk management tool. And uh so this was a a beautiful opportunity to play in the winter canola um opportunity uh that was created through horse this fall, and uh and we're excited to see if that can happen.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

So so you basically as I understand the biggest point in this trial would be to baby basically utilize the water what we have in the fall, right? Yes. And and to have to establish a bigger root development already in the fall a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Then through the spring season, utilize a little bit more the Yes, and something I thought about that uh further is that we're having a significant problem with weed resistance in Western Canada. So one of the one key weed is is kosher. Okay, and what a beautiful thing, establishing a canola plant in the fall that in the spring can take right off and and and provide that uh agronomic uh competitive growth advantage over a little tiny kosher seedling. So so that's a beautiful um crop competition uh situation that fall planting can do. So it just can be another tool for us to help uh combat that aggressive weed that uh that doesn't really establish till into June.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

How did you start it to plant it in? What did you yeah?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

So so we were aware that people can start to plant winter canola as early as as August.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

And uh the fields again, this is uh my bias or my my first opportunity into winter canola, I thought I wanted to put it into a stripper stubble environment at the tall stubble, tall residue establish it to to give it the best opportunity I felt it could have. And uh we had we had very little moisture in that crop stubble. So we were waiting for a rainfall event, and we thought like we could have hurried up and seeded it a little bit earlier, but uh it was a little bit into the late side this year, but uh we did it perfect timing. We we seeded the crop and we received two inches or five centimeters of rainfall that within hours of planting it, and and it came up wonderfully, and um it just thought it might be a little bit too small, but uh we'll see. Well, when when did you seed it? It was September the 10th, September 10th.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yes, that's pretty nights.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And yeah, and we had a frost that was significant on the 5th and 6th of October. We we had a minus five, minus six uh Celsius event for about six or eight hours for two nights in a row.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

So, did you do some nitrogen in the fall or something?

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yes, we did. So um we uh we went out and also uh broadcasted a nitrogen uh application for that canola. I guess we did it just before emergence because we were aware of some sensitivity to tire tracks, or we thought there was some level of sensitivity there, and there was another rainfall event that came, so we we timed uh a perfect application timing to uh to uh ensure that our nitrogen was sufficient there for uh next spring's development.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Okay, interesting. What do you think about dressing with um nitrogen and phosphorus?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

So yeah, so like our phosphate, we we did apply it in the seed row along with the winter canola.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

But uh the uh the deeper depth okay, so um so like like phosphate was put in the same row as our below below the row and 20 centimeters, for example, we have good experiences because we can educate the route uh to the placement. Yes, and uh that's great uh for a better um root development and more winter strongness. A winter strongness, yes. So what you're saying, you you basically try Because the bigger the root, the more winter strongness you will get.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

So in the end, you you're talking about deep banding fertilizer. Yes. Like uh what what type of fertilizer are you?

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Ammonia, also MIP or DIP, for example. Um also with uh sulfur SSR in in Europe. I remember in Bernhard Bauer all the speeches about all this attraction of fertilizers and deep and uh we have great results and experiences in in Europe with um such um style of of fertilizer placement.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

And so I think you you were uh talking about like a double shoot situation where you're putting your phosphate in a different location than the seed, correct?

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah, especially you know, but you know, we have uh it's different practices here in Europe, but um but we our the trend what we see in in a lot of places here in Europe or Eastern Europe is that we try to to place or deep bend um uh let's say phosphor, ammonia, sometimes sulfurs and stuff like this. And um because uh with this attraction of of fertilizer, the root is growing there and we have a but I didn't know the about the winter strongness who was increasing. You will see it.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

That uh you compare different systems, you will see the the placement and without placement, the root looks uh better. But how how deep are you thinking? Or what is uh in my opinion, I think um at least twenty twenty five centimeters. So ten inches, eight to ten inches, yeah. Yes, so um to educate the root or to give them maximum attraction to come um Upside. More upside. Interesting. And under drought conditioner, you will have more powerful roots with um more resilience against droughtness.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

And well that's certainly uh great information. Like anytime we can influence roots and and create a healthier plant, because yeah, we have a very tough environment western Canada with our uh our cold winters and and um and nasty winds and uh everything. So so anything we can do to influence roots is great information.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, I think that's that's that's very interesting because on the worldwide perspective, we we we often see that farms are starting to put fertilizer deeper and deeper and deeper because everybody's trying to reduce tillage or reduce uh the type of tillage and basically place fertilizer as deep as possible. Um because the fertilizer how you call it uh in the top few inches when you have too much fertilizer is how you call it um stratification.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Oh yes, nutrient stratification.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Nutrient stratification is a big topic, which is getting more and more, I think. And uh and especially when when the rainfall is not very high. It's a very, very important piece. But I think in my opinion, you know, um in the North American cropping style or in the general cropping style, it is not one way or the other, you know. But it's very interesting in in North America when you come into the compound, there's always switching between between no-till and strip till me it's a little bit you know, when you take conventional till on top of it, it's going into multiple extremes. And and for me, in the end, it's it's more about okay, we need to think a little bit more different, and we need to think about okay, how can we keep the straw on top of the soil to basically hold a little bit the soil where we have, and then at the same time place fertilizer sometimes even a little bit deeper, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Uh, one question about uh no-till and um fertilization. Uh, how do you think about uh the reloc uh relocation of uh the nutrients in the soil? Relocation, um shifting from one side to the other side. How do you think? Um because uh when we uh look to potassium, for example, uh or also uh phosphorus, um it's um it's not mobile. No, not mobile, no, no mobile, and um we will lose a lot of nutrients on the uh deeper layers. And for the long term, how can we manage it? Or do you think uh it will come by nature and will go to the deeper layer?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

You know, I guess I'm I'm starting to really believe that our our future uh and and our ability to access nutrients and make them more available is gonna become better through improving our soil biology overall. Yes, okay. So whether that means influencing our our uh you know our soil fauna like earthworms and and improving our soil.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

I totally agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Um increasing our our amount of mycorrhizae that we can influence in our soils through fall cover crops and and or through keeping our soil moist, more moist longer by slowing down that that wind and reducing evaporation and again going back to stubble. You you talked yourself about the about about uh our efforts to try to uh maintain more crop residue on the surface. And sometimes there's gonna be a trade-off though, where yes, like our previous system that we're just getting out of now has been a double shoot situation where we put our phosphate lower and our crop will start to grow and then come down into that zone.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

But this would this was pretty close, no?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

It was like an inch deeper, or it was oh yes, yeah, so yeah, it was like an inch and a half uh to the left and then an inch below.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Inch below. So that's yeah, so so yeah, so it's still pretty close still. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, still pretty close.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

And and sometimes we'd still put some in the seed row too, and um, but now the system with our district system is a single shoot uh system, and we're putting all the phosphate in that row, and we had high confidence because uh this fall with the winter canola in particular, because the the moisture was extremely imminent and looking very and and we did receive that five centimeter shot. So we had no concern about uh seed row toxicity and that uh so we did push uh the envelope a little bit to ensure we had good phosphate supply. And I I yeah, so I'm I'm hoping uh nutrient stratification as we uh uh can maybe influence our soils to improve our infiltration rates, yes, and to to increase the ability of our soil water, whether it's from spring melt of snow and or from heavy rainfall, that uh from what I'm reading and understanding is that we can influence our infiltration rates. And typically they suggest it's about a half an inch of rainfall per hour, is our current infiltration rates in a broad sense for most Western Canadian prairie soils, and uh implementing some true no-till and implementing some fall cover crops and and um and good crop rotation, those are all practices that people are finding are proving that they can double that, triple that, get to three to four inches up to seven or nine inches of rainfall infiltration per hour. And and I think then what that's gonna help in our future root systems as well to to uh root in better and work with our mycorrhizae and and help uh help eliminate some of those concerns on nutrient stratification. But uh yeah, there are trade-offs to to uh that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

I would like to s to see how it how this will in future improve. And um well what what what I've seen or what what I've seen in the world uh in this situation is that it's it goes to a certain point, but the problem is our yields are evolving more and more, and the yields are getting more and more on the top on the top soil. And and if you if you see, you know, with all the straw that we put on top of the soil, uh there's still a lot of decomposing happening in the top few inches. And and uh and I understand okay good through through worms and so on, we want to bring this stuff down, but do we really get all this done? I me personally I I I've seen it in some cases, but not all of them. Um I've seen it in situations when you have a lot of rainfall like South America and so on. That works well. North America, maybe it's possible. I haven't seen it yet. But I think still we we need to think a little bit. And and I'm not talking about a shank. I'm not talking absolutely not about shank. I don't don't I don't want to disturb the soil, but I still think we need to find a way where we place some especially just phosphor and port ash. So what how how does look your crop today? How much is it is it is it big enough or I can't I can just imagine, you know, well with with all the stop straw in the top. I think the the straw is binding a lot of nitrogen already to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so so uh with that broadcast application of the nitrogen, um, certainly think that we probably had some level of conversion uh to nitrate. And uh, but nonetheless, it'll it'll uh it'll do what it needs to do to help with break down some of the some of the extra straw material that is there. Um, but but the rate that we applied, I think was going to provide sufficient from experience. We're gonna have a lot of good nitrogen supply for uh an excellent crop. However, uh, when you ask me how today's crop is, I I think we had some loss. We certainly had some loss. We have a great uh uh chat group that was created out of this. Thank you for putting this together, by the way. So we have some great dialogue throughout Canada, uh, you know, into Ontario, into eastern Canada and us out in the west. And uh so there's some great experience, uh great um sharing of information and and and progress or success or failure. And uh a lot of areas were dry and established uh a uh winter canola a little bit late. And uh then we seen that picture from Ontario last week. It was like, oh my gosh, he got a great crop there. Yes, yeah, terrific. You know, and I think he shared that he had a 90 bushel result, and that's exciting to hear about a 90 bushel crop of canola, but he had 90 bushels an acre. I believe that was Ontario, wasn't it? Uh this year. And uh so you know, all we need is a few of those guys to keep uh leading us along, and we'll we'll be we'll we'll work harder to try to get there and uh and learn these best management practices and uh and and we'll get better. We're none of us are gonna quit here overnight. So so it's uh it's very interesting. So I I I truly think we've probably lost two-thirds of our plant population. I think we're we've we're down to a third.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

It's not not unheard of in winter canona. Okay, it's not unheard of. And Europe, that's not unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

So some sometimes some of your best, some of your mistakes can become good learning things. And and and my son seeded a crop, and we had a little bit of a calibration issue, and we ended up seeding double the rate. So so in that area of the field, and it's only a 40-acre experiment, we uh we might now have the right populations uh set. So we'll see. Uh we we'll we have two sets of uh we'll have two sets of data out there, I guess, and um we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Yeah. So how many, how many, how many plants per square meter or square feet do you have today?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, I think uh, you know, on a foot a row, and we're on 10 inch spacing or 25 centimeter rows, we are uh probably at two plants. I'm gonna say there's only two plants probably per per uh uh 30 centimeters in a row. There's more in places, but it's uh I want to keep it real here.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

And uh two plants per so how but what would it be for 30 centimeters? Is it 10 inch row?

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah, they are 10 inch, yeah, or 25 centimeters. Some of them are of the size of my hand, so that's the that's the size of our winter, the the best case scenario of our some of our plant establishment. Like in a case of spring canola for us, they are often recommend we try to establish six or seven plants per foot of row.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

So I if if I calculated it right, I'm not sure we need to check later, but it looks like it's like twenty-six, twenty-five plants at the square metal table.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Okay. And I know how we in in Europe we say the distance uh between plants in a row must be at least from eight till fifteen centimeters. It's um the best um standing for every single um crop. Okay. So and um twenty-five um is in a looks in a good or is a good way. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Well that makes me feel better too. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

But uh tell us what what would be the imp at at how what plant population in the spring would you still have full potential of canola, winter canola?

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Um so we can uh realize uh more than five tons with 20 plants. There is no problem in Europe. And when we square meters or square meter, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

So that's that's roughly two. Roughly two, two, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Yeah. So per square foot.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Okay. Well that's yeah. That may be okay. We'll see. We have a long ways to go. We when we left home, we had uh a fresh uh uh yeah, yeah. When I left home, we had a fresh layer of snow, which might provide a bit of an insulation barrier because we hit minus 18 Celsius the night we flew here to Germany to Agrotechnica. Minus 18. Minus 18. So that's uh yeah, that's a hostile environment for this winter canola program. However, we did receive two or three inches of snow cover in that tall residue, so that might have protected. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

Yeah, that's that's important, but but what it one very important piece is that that it don't fall and freezes again and basically closes up because I think what I learned is when when it's basically airlocked, it can be an issue as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Like under a snow cover, yeah. Airlock, okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

If it was a bit an icy uh it's it does need to be some air exchange to a certain extent, but an airlocked situation would not be good. But the thing what I've seen now on the on the chat now over the over the last few months is that that we we still have a lot of you know agronomic technical things like because we are in Europe we use a very intensive program with boron, yes, with uh with a lot of uh we try to get some good nitrogen into a strip to a row or something like that, because we need about I think in the fall like sixty to eighty uh kilos in hectare of nitrogen, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:04

Um depends on the development, but when we estimate six till ten leaves in fall time, roughly sixty till hundred kilos nitrogen uptake. Yeah. That's realistic.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

And and and we typically have in Europe we no-till situations for winter canola is a little bit tough because we have mice, we have slugs and all these things. And I'm impressed that it still works in your conditions. That's this would be would be it's very tough to establish a no-till canola and in winter canola and in Europe, but it's it's very interesting that it works in North America.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Well, we'll see how it works in in the western part of Canada. I guess real soon there there's been some little What about growth regulation?

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah in full time?

SPEAKER_02 35:53

In in North in Canada, growth regulators is is just a starting topic, as I understand, right? Yeah. It's not it's not it's not very established.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

It's not a widespread practice, and there has been some drier years, but then uh like up till I think it was even 10 years ago, there's some of us that were experimenting with that in our moist uh years to manage or improve our harvestability and and uh and and to maximize or optimize our yield outcomes.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

So what what I learned from farmers in uh in Canada is is the the knowledge of the practice with growth regulators is not is not something what is already established as much.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

The later and uh the more stretching the neck. Here you need to work with modus. But modus needs sun and warm weather conditions.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Is that strategic to have the growing point closer to the surface of the soil? That's very important.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

That's the that's our main goal in Europe. We need to look to the neck um or to the vegetation uh um point. And when we have less than two centimeters before winter 1.5, yes, that's great, and we make a good job. And on the other hand, we also we don't only think about um growth regulation, we also think about more winter strongness. And here makes Clomikwatt or Tiboconazola a great job in combination with um some micronutrients like boron, copper, also um micronutrient uh calcium, uh what increase our tissue stability and gives them more winter strongness.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Okay, and and the boron is very crucial because winter canola has the tendency to to break up in the middle a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

And crucifers needs boron like sugar beets.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

You know, and and and we've worked with micronutrients in the past and and still do. When we have ideal cra crop growing conditions. Uh, just in context, too, you know, we're we're dealing with soils that are of glacial till origin and uh 120 year of uh 120 years of agriculture, and and we're struggling to uh often measure value in our in a micronutrient uh space. There are great examples, and and there are crops and high yield conditions where where it's important. But but this is great information to help uh because the fall, uh you know, that's good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Yes, uh, and don't forget molybden. It's also very important, it's a crucial topic uh for rape.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I wanted to mention too, you know, the flea beetle uh concern uh of insects in the fall, you mentioned it too. Uh yeah, it's a it's a significant concern in Western Canada for fall establishment. As we're harvesting our canola in the fall, there's a lot of uh insect pressure. So it's like, wow, how are we gonna establish this stuff um uh successfully? And so what one of the strategies that I know uh Dr. Pete Fay, and uh he he he's long retired now from uh in um Montana State University. Well, he was doing research in canola to help ward off uh insect pressure, and so he was getting a lot of uh uh he was planting oats in with his rapeseed canola back in the 1990s, and and it was uh it was enough uh smoke and mirrors or whatever that the it it held the flea beetle pressure off. But he was he soon learned though it was very sensitive. The the canola was very sensitive to that uh tame oat pressure of the so he had to remove it very quickly. But nonetheless, uh that first cotyledon, early cotyledon stage, having the presence of oats in the cedar, he did it for two reasons. One to help with establishment, actually. So the the grassy cotyledon of the of the oat helped push sooth soil and it helped uh increase his level of success of germination and emergence. But the secondary benefit he found was a reduction in uh uh feeding of the flea beetle insects.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

And you know, we're finding more of what uh was always a black flea beetle. Now we have the striped flea beetle, we have a new flea beetle that uh that's a voracious uh uh feeder or uh consumer of our of our codladens. So so uh I was hoping that the tall stubble environment was uh gonna be another aid. And and then of course I talk about our stripper headers and a bit of loss, header loss. Although, well, any of that loss might help provide uh some extra benefit for uh reduced uh uh flea beetle feeding. So so uh anyhow, we have our strategies that we sometimes try to think too hard around sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Uh yeah, the flea beetle situation, it's it's a big topic, yes, in Europe.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

So yeah, and so if there's a cultural option, then I was kind of I pulled back because it was Dr. Pete Faye in the early 1990s where we went down to a bunch of dealers and we learned a lot about uh a cultural uh experience like that. So I thought that's too interesting for you to do.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Yeah, we we had an I don't know if you have done it, but we had some some years ago a lot of farmers were using fabric beans combinated with with canola. Yes, and farber beans was a very attractive corps crop to to this. And and in the end the guys were trying to to fix a little bit of nitrogen.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Did they leave the fabers in or did they trick did they spread them out?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

They leave them in.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Oh, okay. Oh, oh yes, I see. Yeah, they would they would uh terminate from the first event, yes, absolutely. Yes, the fabric, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

But in case of um flea beetle control, uh we didn't uh see any difference between the level of feeding. Yes, so yes, the level of feeding and we also look for an integrated approach. Um the first step is our seat date. Uh we have um the experience the earlier the seat date, and um the better the the starting. Um we the the the plant is bigger enough um and uh wide enough to um have enough uh resilience. And later in this year we have great problems in case of the uh beetles. And on the other hand, we need to look for the best uh chemical practice and with to make combinations um with the different um chemical classes and so on. And it's a huge challenge.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yes, it is. We need to work along with some cultural experiences and agronomic and put it all together and uh achieve our target uh plant population.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah, so that's that's all interesting, but um but I think we we had now a good long talk and um and I think we we just got the start done in in in Canada and maybe for next year we'll learn some new things. And um I would like to to thank you. Thank you all to to take the time today and talk a little bit about winter canola planting in Canada and um let's maybe continue the talk and let's see how we can continue to establish this this setup and this crops.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

It's a great opportunity to to bring ideas and comp conversation around around one goal and to share from around the world. So thank you guys for uh for today.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

You're welcome. Welcome, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, everybody, to take the time to listen to us and uh see you next time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Awesome. Thank you for listening. For more information and interesting posts, visit horsch.comslash studio.