LACOMBE, Alta. – Speed doesn’t just kill drivers; it also kills canola seed.
Canola seeded fast and deep had 40 to 45 percent reduction in emergence than canola seeded shallow and slow in test plots near Lacombe.
“It’s pretty dramatic,” said Neil Harker, a research scientist with Agriculture Canada’s Lacombe Research Centre.
A trial comparing seeding speed and depth with hybrid and open pollinated canola showed a visible difference in emergence of canola in test plots.
Harker said canola is notorious for poor emergence with often only 50 percent of the seed making it through the soil, even with a 95 percent germination rate. When researchers took a closer look at canola in farm fields, the seed was often found deep in the soil, even though farmers set their drill to place the seed one to 2½ centimetres below the surface.
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They found that the faster the drill moved through the soil, the more soil was tossed over the seed, making it harder for the tiny seeds to emerge.
“The cause of poor germination is likely due to depth and speed,” Harker said.
Initially, Harker wondered if a higher fan speed in air drills was damaging the seed, but early tests showed high fan speed accounted for little of the poor emergence.
Seed placed one centimetre deep at a seeding speed of four mph had the highest germination with 101 hybrid plants per sq. metre emerging and 123 canola plants emerging through the soil with open pollinated seed. Emergence dropped to 61 seeds per sq. metre with hybrid canola when speed was increased to seven mph and a seed depth of four cm. Only 68 seeds per sq. metre germinated with the open pollinated canola.
With many producers seeding at five mph and often reaching speeds of six or seven mph, speed could be the main reason for the poor emergence of canola seed. During the trial, most of the canola seed germinated but never emerged.
“We think that’s a real problem.”
With a growing trend to reduce seeding costs and farmers seeding less than the recommended seed per acre, Harker said it’s important to seed more slowly.
He said farmers must weigh the benefits of going slower and getting better seed establishment, rather than seeding fast and covering more acres of land.
“If you’re going to reduce the seed rate, you want to make sure you go slow and shallow.”
