Fertilizer and commodity prices often dictate producers’ approaches to canola production, especially at seeding time.
Maximizing yield in a financially effective manner is key to canola production, says Rigas Karamanos, an agronomy researcher with Viterra in Calgary.
“You don’t want to come up short of nutrients when the prices are where they have been or are even right now,” he said.
“A few years ago, with $6 (per bushel) canola, you had to make choices about realistic returns based on potential yields and getting your money back from your fertilizer. That isn’t generally the case right now.”
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Researchers say steadily improving genetics will deliver profitable canola this year when combined with a set of best agronomy practices, provided it rains.
Elwin Smith of Agriculture Canada said producers often plan the basics of their production on prices and then hope for favourable weather to deliver those potential benefits.
“Research has provided new genetics with herbicide tolerance and disease resistance packages on-board. This has created some great new opportunities for producers. It has also created some new challenges too,” he said.
“Hybrid seed is also higher priced, and these crops may also be more sensitive to growing conditions.”
To maximize yields from the latest canola genetics, crops need to be seeded earlier and fertilized more. As well, the latest genetics are packaged in some of the most expensive seed prairie producers have ever put in the ground.
Smith said all of these factors have a cost and must be considered carefully. Although reducing inputs and saving money on timely production costs will leave more money in the bank, it also has the potential to negatively affect yields and net returns.
Hybrid canola varieties require good growing conditions to perform at their best.
“You get the best bang from the hybrids under good conditions and adequate fertility.”
Economic research at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Lethbridge has found that open pollinated seed begins to break even with its hybrid counterpart only when hybrid seed reaches nearly $40 per kilogram and when canola is selling for about $400 per tonne.
If canola prices fell to about $250 per tonne, hybrid seed prices of $25 per kg will still break even when compared with open pollinated varieties.
“That may not always be the case in very dry areas or those with the shortest seasons, but overall this is what the majority of the research tells us,” Smith said.
Some producers have tried farm-saved hybrid seed (F2) when prices are low. They have attempted to overcome reduced vigour and genetic problems of F2 seed by increasing seeding rates and selecting for larger seed sizes.
Smith said research comparing F2 to certified F1 hybrid seed has found that saved F2 seed would break even only when F1 seed cost more than $28 per kg and if canola was about $400 per tonne.
With canola prices at $250 per tonne, the saved F2 would break even only at an F1 hybrid price of $18 per kg.
Saving money on saved seed in most cases didn’t work, Smith said.
The research also found that higher seeding rates or larger seed sizes didn’t increase F2 profitability.
Higher seeding rates reduced net profits and only when seeds weren’t treated did the larger seed size improve profitability.
Failing to treat seed increases the risk of catastrophic losses.
Smith said saved hybrid seed is also legally questionable.
Farmer and agrologist Edgar Hammermeister of Alameda, Sask., said producers increase the probability of profits when they ensure adequate nutrients are available to support a hybrid canola crop.
The 2009 calculations for his farm in southeastern Saskatchewan, which isn’t typically considered ideal canola country, show that paying $110 per acre for nitrogen fertilizer, in balance with other inputs, would yield a gross return of $274 per acre.
A reduction to $90 of nitrogen per acre would likely provide a crop worth $260 per acre.
“So depending on where you grow that crop and under what conditions, there is a point where you can overspend. But you need to know where that (point) is.”
Smith said a soil test will provide recommendations for needed nutrients, but in most cases, especially when it comes to nitrogen, those recommendations are out of date and based on open pollinated varieties.
“If you’re paying 89 cents a pound for your N and you need to buy most of it, then you have to consider what you can afford,” he said.
A high yielding canola crop can remove more than 100 lb. of nitrogen per acre.
Agriculture Canada research has found mixed results with nitrogen hybrid and open pollinated canola crops.
However, the potential efficiency of hybrid crops isn’t in doubt.
An average open pollinated canola variety yielding 33 bu. per acre will use about 30 lb. of nitrogen, while a hybrid crop will yield about 37 bu. from the same amount of nitrogen.
A 42 bu. open pollinated crop will take 90 lb. of nitrogen from the soil. The same 90 lb. of nitrogen will, on average, and based on good growing conditions, deliver 50 bu. from a hybrid variety.
“The (nitrogen efficiency and yield) gap between hybrids and OP varieties widens as the (growing) conditions improve,” Smith said.
Researchers say reducing nitrogen and phosphorus from high levels for economic reasons has a more profound effect on hybrid varieties than on open pollinated crops.
The timing of seeding is critical to yield and reducing risk in a canola crop.
A farm’s environmental and soil zones will determine when canola can be planted, but in most of the Prairies the crop can be seeded at or before the beginning of May.
While this creates risks associated with late frost and cold soil, in most cases a higher than average seeding rate will help ensure survival of a viable population that canopies quickly.
Fall seeding has met with mixed results. However, research has found that late, dormant fall planting in the colder, heavier soil of the middle and northern grain belt can work in some years if seeding is late enough.
However, no fall seeded crop can measure up to the net returns from early spring seeded crops, which tend to be $135 to $175 per acre.
Compared to normal seeding dates of May 15, which typically net between $75 and $160, early seeded have superior yields.
Smith said controlling weeds in herbicide tolerant crops, whether open pollinated or hybrid, pays financial dividends, suggesting that $10 to $30 per acre is available by dealing with weeds when the crop is in the two to four leaf stage rather than the six leaf point.
“There is no benefit from waiting to control weeds in canola,” he said.
For more information, visit www.canola.ab.ca/agronomic.fact.html.
