Burn off canola volunteers ahead of cereals

volunteer canola

With the wind losses last fall, canola volunteers may be more plentiful than usual this spring. Growers have good options to control these volunteers ahead of cereal rotation crops.

See the chart on pg 63 in the 2017 Saskatchewan/Manitoba Guide to Crop Protection for pre-seed products approved for other crops.

Volunteer canola is a weed and competes with the crop for nutrients and water and sunlight, but this is not the only reason to get rid of them. Volunteers do not have seed treatment, so they can introduce seedling diseases and increase flea beetle pressure. Volunteers in non canola years also provide a host for blackleg and clubroot, reducing the effectiveness of crop rotation for managing these diseases.