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Canola Digest has five issues per year, including the Science Edition. All articles are posted online at canoladigest.ca. Here are the top 10 most-clicked articles from the September 2017 to March 2018 issues.
1. Canola seed advances for 2018 (September 2017 issue). Stacking of popular traits, including pod-shatter tolerance and enhanced disease resistance, is an important agronomic theme for the 2018 class of canola seed.
2. “Help us have more fun!” (January 2018) Some farm men are experiencing a serious lack of fun, and this can start to influence the business, family harmony and all aspects of life. The good news is finding your own fun and setting aside the time is a choice. You can do it.
3. Soil sampling in the big-data era (January 2018) Soil test protocols developed for Western Canada in the 1960s are still used and still relevant, but farmers can collect a lot more data now to further refine recommendations. These are not your father’s soil tests.
4. Market outlook: What’s ahead for canola? (March 2018) Global demand for vegetable oil and meal keeps rising, which is positive for the canola outlook. But what will another rise in canola acres in Western Canada mean for disease and other rotation issues?
5. Tillage decisions (January 2018) Tillage is making a comeback with recent high-moisture years. With all the benefits of reduced tillage, is this a positive? Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialist Brittany Hennig goes through five steps to consider before returning to tillage or increasing the use of tillage.
6. Post-emergent nitrogen reduces the seeding time crunch (January 2018) When logistics make it difficult to apply the needed volume of fertilizer at seeding, broadcast applications are probably not the best answer. Post-emergent side banding with a coulter puts N where needed and when needed without the risk of loss.
7. Why are low yielding areas low yielding? (January 2018) Low-yielding areas might contribute more to the bottom line by cutting inputs to reduce losses or increasing inputs to improve profitability. The choice depends on answering the question in the headline.
8. Root bacteria relates to higher canola yield (January 2018) Exploration of the canola root microbiome discovered that an abundance of Serratia bacteria in canola roots relates positively to canola yield. Could this bacteria become a yield-boosting inoculant?
9. Banding N shows clear yield advantage with lower N rates (Science Edition 2017) In this east-central Manitoba study comparing surface, shallow-band and deep band nitrogen applications, any yield effect from nitrogen losses were minimal when nitrogen was applied at 100 per cent of the recommended rate. Losses were still happening, but the N rate compensated. At 70 per cent of recommended rate, the yield-damaging effect of N loss from surface applications shows up much more clearly.
10. Sick, not weak (January 2018) TSN’s Michael Landsberg presented “Why is it so hard to talk about mental health?” at Grain World in Winnipeg in November.
