Wet canola from the 2009 harvest needs attention

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Published: March 18, 2010

Only 24 percent of canola producers monitor their crop weekly once it’s in the bin, according to a Canola Council of Canada survey.

Council agronomist Jim Bessel said a similar percentage of farmers check once a month. He’d like to see those numbers go up.

“There is a lot of great canola that went into the bin last fall that’s not doing so well now,” he said.

“Monitoring bins is more critical this coming spring than I think we’ve seen since the early ’80s.”

Read Also

Spencer Harris (green shirt) speaks with attendees at the Nutrien Ag Solutions crop plots at Ag in Motion on July 16, 2025. Photo: Greg Berg

Interest in biological crop inputs continues to grow

It was only a few years ago that interest in alternative methods such as biologicals to boost a crop’s nutrient…

A variety of weather factors affected stored canola then, which was when storage loss data was collected and guidelines developed.

Bessel said last year’s crop went into storage under a full range of harvest conditions.

He said monitoring is necessary to prevent what he calls the “hidden closet syndrome.”

No producer likes to talk about losing a bin worth of grain, he added.

“It’s not something you’re very proud of. And you’ve gone to all the effort to get it to that point.”

However, heating, moisture and pests all take their toll on stored crop.

More than one-third of the approximately 1,000 producers who responded to the council’s survey reported problems with spoilage.

Bessel said changes in canola have caused some of the problems.

“We have a commodity that has increased in oil dramatically,” he said.

The height and diameter of some of the storage bins are also factors.

Bessel said he was surprised that 18 percent of respondents turn their canola. Thirty-five percent use aeration.

Bessel said storage recommendations must be revised to accommodate these changes.

Bag storage is working well for some producers but not for others, he added. Research is underway in Manitoba to look at how temperature, sunlight and precipitation affect the bags and the canola inside them.

“Mould grows in the fridge,” he noted wryly.

About the author

Karen Briere

Karen Briere

Karen Briere grew up in Canora, Sask. where her family had a grain and cattle operation. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Regina and has spent more than 30 years covering agriculture from the Western Producer’s Regina bureau.

explore

Stories from our other publications