Montana Omega-3 Canola Planting, Emergence Update – June 13, 2020
Brian Morse, Nuseed Omega-3 Canola Production Coordinator for MT
Montana received much needed precipitation and cooler temps early in the week. That moisture replenished the top soil and the Omega-3 canola has really taken off. Sub soil moisture is good, so we are in good shape for a successful Omega-3 canola crop at this point.
We are now in the middle of our season. We have Omega-3 canola that is flowering, bolting, rosette, and at 2-6 leaf stages.
Herbicides have been applied and most fields are looking good from a cleanliness stand point.
The OM404CL flowering picture is a field in Southeast Montana. The crop is looking good and no off types have been seen yet. The grower is keeping the ground irrigated, but we have mid 90 degree temperatures being forecasted for the next few days before a change in weather to cooler temperatures.
The remainder of the photos were taken at Nuseed’s Dryland Trial, so all plots were seeded on the same day with a grower’s drill. The plots were seeded on May 16th. The drill was calibrated to seed at a rate of 500,000 – 550,000 seeds/acre.
Nuseed varieties OM404 CL, OM401, and OM301 are all seeded in MT in different regions and fields have met the required isolation requirements provided by the Nuseed seed production group.
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May 30, 2020 – Montana is done seeding. Nuseed has Omega-3 canola plants at various stages depending on where and when the canola was seeded.
Our southern growing area is just in the rosette stage, just starting reproduction stage. This is good timing as the later in the summer we get temperatures in those areas can reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit which is not good for canola pollen. The fields in this area are irrigated which will help in achieving a good yield.
Our central region is anywhere from 1-4 leaf canola. Some areas have had to control flee beetles as the threshold for applications was met or exceeded. Some growers have started applying herbicides to control weed escapes from preplant herbicide applications. We are still on track to have a successful season.
Our northern region is looking extremely well at this point with timely rains shortly after seeding, so emergence for most fields is very good.
Nuseed seeded our irrigated plot 2 weeks ago. Emergence began in about 7 days and we are gathering emergence data every 3-4 days to check effects of seed treatments that were applied to different plots and varieties.
We are looking at some above average temperatures for the next few days with some forecasted precipitation and cooler temperatures toward the end of next week.
The PNWCA (Pacific North West Canola Association) is starting to plan for field tours this summer during the week of July 6th. Montana is planning the next phase of opening on June 20th. Hopefully we continue the trend of no new cases of COVID so individuals can see the effort that has been put into trials in North Dakota and Montana to advance the Omega-3 commercial program. It is exciting to see the new varieties that the breeding team has developed and to see these lines in large grower strips to compare these varieties side by side.
