REGINA – Ken Kirkland isn’t quite ready to give frost seeding his gold seal of approval.
But the manager of the Agriculture Canada Research Station at Scott, Sask., agrees his work with late fall or early spring seeded canola is promising.
“I think we’re seeing a lot of farmers looking at it in terms of some acres this fall,” Kirkland said. “But we have a long way to go before we could come out and say we’ve got something.”
For the past three years Kirkland has researched seeding after the end of October or in April. Canola, particularly herbicide tolerant varieties, is proving to be a good candidate.
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More water resistant
“To seed a crop of canola in fall is less expensive than peas or lentils,” he explained. “Second, it has a hard seed coat and it’s oily so it’s a little more resistant to water uptake. (Germination) is less likely to happen.”
If the crop germinates in fall, it will die over winter.
Kirkland said herbicide tolerant canola is not better in terms of survival, but performs better in a direct seeding system against winter annual weeds like stinkweed and shepherd’s purse. He said one application of Roundup at the three to four leaf stage makes growing herbicide tolerant varieties economical.
But the real advantage to frost seeding is a crop that matures an average of three weeks earlier.
This year a frost-seeded canola crop was swathed Aug. 1 and combined Aug. 13, ahead of most diseases and all insects, Kirkland said.
He said green seed is not a problem, and oil content is as much as two percent higher, likely because it flowers during cooler, moister conditions.
Kirkland said yields have been about the same, but they could be higher in frost-seeded crops.
“We do expect that potential to be there because the flowering and seed set takes place in June rather than July,” he said. “We saw that this year where the frost-seeded canola out-yielded the traditional by quite a bit.”
Frost seeded canola averaged 33 to 35 bushels per acre, while canola seeded later this spring averaged about 20 bushels per acre, he said.
While the research looks promising, Kirkland said premature germination is still a big risk.
Researchers are working to extend seed dormancy through the use of protectants. Kirkland said this work is preliminary, but includes the use of plastic or polymer coatings that would protect the seed for 10 days to two weeks and only break down when the temperature reached 5-8 C in spring.
Kirkland recommends fall seeding start no sooner than Oct. 28, but with better protectants that could be moved up as early as Oct. 15.
