Inputs: The Podcast
Inputs: Takeaways from the Canola Discovery Forum 2019

This bonus episode of Inputs is all about canola – from how harvest was to producer plans for 2020. Associate editor Stephanie Gordon shares highlights from when she travelled to Winnipeg to attend the Canola Discovery Forum from Nov. 13 to 15, 2019. In the episode, Keith Gabert, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, shares ways growers can improve their integrated pest management strategies, producers Scott Keller and Troy LaForge share what they do on their operation, and Ashley Robinson, Canadian agriculture reporter with Bloomberg, shares the latest news on the China-Canada canola trade dispute.

Never miss an episode of Inputs by subscribing to the new Top Crop Manager channel on iTunes. The full Inputs playlist is now available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Show notes

The Canola Discovery Forum discussed a lot of topics previously covered in past articles, here’s a short list of some of the research that was mentioned:

• Managing small areas of clubroot – Tips on how to manage the spread of clubroot with Bruce Gossen, plant pathologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Saskatoon. Gossen’s research also looked into the effectiveness of incorporating lime to bring soil pH up and its impact on reducing clubroot infection.
• Tacking a tough enemy – Ontario is no stranger to clubroot so it’s using its knowledge of the disease to help western Canadian canola growers. Mary Ruth McDonald, a professor in the department of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph, is currently conducting a trial to assess the level of clubroot resistance in some canola cultivars that are commonly grown in Ontario.
• Understanding aster yellows and predicting aster yellow outbreaks – Understanding the disease, how it spreads and cycles over the years, and how to predict the next outbreak.
• Aster yellows: symptoms, management and agronomic considerations – What crops are hosts to the aster yellow disease and how does that impact crop rotation? Producers are encouraged to avoid planting canola next to alfalfa or other perennial forages.
• Warming climate = new pest threat? – So far in Canada, pollen beetle is found only in the Maritimes and Quebec, but climate models show it could survive and even thrive in canola-growing regions across the country.
• Reconciling canola seeding rate and seed size – In an effort to reduce canola seeding costs, some growers are cutting seeding rates from five pounds an acre to four and even three pounds per acre. At the same time, hybrid canola seed size has been increasing. Neil Harker out of AAFC Lacombe compares seeding rates with four canola seed sizes.
• Managing cabbage seed pod weevil and lygus bug – Can you have both? A four-year study determines the impact of spraying insecticide for cabbage seedpod weevil on the abundance of lygus bug.
• Sclerotinia stem rot in review – Cultural control, resistance breeding, and fungicide control for sclerotinia in canola.
• A look at later seeding for winter wheat – Many winter wheat growers in Western Canada are wondering if the seeding window can be extended given a string of late harvests. A multi-year, multi-site Prairie study is working towards a tool that will help growers answer that question for their own conditions.