UAN Canola Trials

I did not have a weather station or soil probe on any of these fields, but all were within 2-4 miles of the weather station and soil probe I do have. We targeted the same 15 bu/ac as the wheat and sprayed the canola around the 3-5 leaf stage. None of the trials reached the targeted 15bu/ac. It is possible that we were low on other macronutrients or that heavy rains caused more nitrogen loss. We sprayed UAN+generic agrotain on 3 fields at rates listed below. These trials weren’t replicated. All treatments made a net profit except for the last field 8 gallon rate which lost -2.8$/ac. The first field of standing L234PC we took off the 12 gallon rate trial had a drowned out area in it that brought the yield down. Yield increases varied from 9bu/ac to as low as 1.5bu/ac.

Next year if the moisture is good during the growing season, I will put initial macro rates to a 15bu/ac yield bump above my target yield and add Nitrogen if it is called for. I wasn’t entirely sure what results would look like so didn’t want to go too crazy with rates this year. Overall we were pleased with the increases we saw.

UAN Wheat Trial

We had 14.5 inches of rain from May 1st to September 1st.  Our soil probe told us our water driven yield potential was +15bu/ac at spray timing. We also ran some lower rates to see how the crop responded. The wheat was around 4-6 leaf when sprayed.

 The AAC Redberry that we top-dressed stood decent, If 10 is poker straight and 1 is pancake flat I would of ranked it a 7. For farmers who came on the summer field day the spot near the weather station was estimated by a market advisor to run around 85, and the Crop Intelligence estimated the same.  When combining that part of the field we found it was right around that 85-90bu mark climbing as high as 110 towards the middle of the field.  You’ll notice the average for those trials was closer to 75bu/ac.  The land we put it on gets light towards the south side, which brought the yield down.  Those acres ran closer to 50bu/ac.  This lighter area runs evenly across the south side so the treatments were all under very similar growing conditions. Overall this trail made a net profit at the 15 and 12 gallon rates.

 The AAC Elie that we top-dressed did not fair well in the wind storms we had in late July and early August.  The yield still shows some difference but not as much as the AAC Redberry. I believe that is due to excessive lodging, that happened in both UAN strips which didn’t allow kernels to fill out to their full potential.  The untreated check areas stood better but not by much.  The field overall graded lower due to lodging.  It also seemed to hit all the perfect angles and directions to cause areas that had no reason to lodge to do so. I had this variety a few miles away and it stood nicely in those fields. The AAC Elie field again paid on the 15 gallon rate but did not on the 12 gallon rate.

My conclusions: On a year with 15 inches of rain the initial 100lbs of Nitrogen is adequate for high protein and yield as shown in the check areas below. The higher rates of nitrogen penciled out at a profit adding up to 8bu/ac more and half a point of protein while the lower rates were not worth it. Protein premiums are lower this year, on average looking at closer to 2 cents a tenth vs. 3 or higher which would change the net income of these trials significantly, though it still seems high rates of Nitrogen are the only ones worth application.

Yellow Pea Trials

This year we moved away from the check variety CDC Amarillo, and into AAC Ardill and AAC Carver peas.   We grew both varieties in strip trials against our AAC Barrhead peas.   From the trials we found the following

Standability: AAC Carver had a consistent southern lean to it once desiccation rolled around.  It was easy to pick up though, we combined it straight north and south with no issues.  The Barrhead peas next to it had more variations in standability with some areas standing 4/5 feet tall at harvest and others flatter, I would chalk that up to variation in topography. 

The AAC Ardill peas stood very well, had a slight lean to the west and were easy to combine.  The AAC Barrheads beside them went flat, but were not as badly lodged as last year.  Towards the north where the Barrheads were seeded the field had more disease pressure due to less drainage, some passes were not sprayed with fungicide due to moisture

Maturity: We seeded the Ardills and Carvers on the 13th of May, and Barrheads the 14th.   Last year we ran around 105 days to maturity.   Carvers and Barrheads are two of the earliest varieties in western Canada and they still took 119 days this year. The Ardill peas are supposed to be an M rating for maturity similar to CDC Amarillo and we found the rating to be on par with them. It took an extra 10 days to reach maturity over the two early maturing varieties though our relatively late seeding date may have factored into the length this year.

Yield:  Previous customers will be happy to know that head to head Barrheads and Carvers ran the same. The Ardill peas with the longer maturity managed to squeeze out 6 more bushels to be the top yielding variety of the year.  All yields were weighed on our truck scale.

We have good supply of all 3 varieties and all have come in at 99% germination before cleaning. Post cleaning specs will be updated on each page as they are cleaned.

Canterra Canola Trial

The CS2000 and CS2600CR-T were both shorter than the PV variety with the CS2600CR-T being shortest.  All 3 varieties had good standability and were easy to swath.

Maturity: The early maturity of the CS2600CR-T showed in the harvest moisture as it dried down more than the other varieties. The PV 581 took at least a week longer to mature than the CS2000 and about 10 days longer than the CS2600CR-T.

Yield: The yield average on the field, which was all PV 581GC, ran 47bu/ac. Yields were calculated to 9% moisture in the right column to fairly test against each other. The yields in the trial were within 1bu/ac of each other with the two Canterra varieties edging out their respective PV trials to the north and south. CS2000 was the highest yielding canola in the trial at 53.7bu/ac.

Both Canterra varieties are a good fit for the area, CS2000 with its high yielding mid maturity and the versatile CS2600CR-T with its early maturity, ability to straight cut and the TruFlex trait. There was some confusion at the field day I had this summer on what TruFlex means. To clarify Canola with the TruFlex designation has the ability to take up to 1.33L/ac of Roundup WeatherMax in a season, and you can spray past 6 leaf and up to first flower when doing a split application of .66L/ac.

We will have CS2000 and CS2600CR-T available to book this fall, both have built in clubroot resistance. You can book online on the Canterra website or contact one of us for pricing.  If you are booking online use Konieczny Seeds as your preferred retailer and I will get you a price when the system notifies me.

2018 Variety Comparison

I thought after harvest I would do a little variety comparison, what we liked and didn’t like about what we grow and sell on our seed farm. I want this review to be unbiased so that farmers know exactly how it grows in the area from a farmer perspective. We use seed treatment on all our acres, and we use in season fungicide though this year we did not spray the peas, it wasn’t economical. If you’re looking for specific yield numbers, please call or text me at 780-581-5693 and I’ll be happy to let you know, I’ll leave it out of this review because rain was so scattered your numbers will be different than mine.

2018 saw our farm add new varieties to our line up. Here are our thoughts on how they performed, note that we had very little rain throughout the growing season and 10 days of smoke at the beginning of August that delayed maturity.

Peas.

Our 2 pea varieties were split on a half section that on a normal year has negligible yield difference from the north quarter to the south quarter so we feel it is a good varietal performance test on our farm.

AAC Barrhead Peas. The Barrheads were the last peas we planted and were the first to combine; 102 days to maturity. We were very impressed with the early maturity. These peas stood excellent and were easy to combine, downside this year was that the seed weight ended up higher than usual but I’ll chalk that up to the dry conditions. Impressed with the seed coat quality, very little to no splitting. Out yielded CDC Amarillo on the same field by 3bu/ac. With the early maturity, lodging resistance, strong seed coat and stand-ability Barrhead peas should be in the running for more acres.

CDC Amarillo Peas. These peas still stand excellent, similar to many of the newer varieties. Yield is consistent and they combine easy. The downsides we are finding with these peas are the weak seed coat and later maturity. I have found in our few years of growing them the germination suffers from seed coat issues. It is best to take them off on the tough side to keep splits low, which was very hard in the hot weather of August. The later maturity runs the combines into September which can reduce the benefit of growing peas, though we like to have a mix of early and late to combat taking peas off at 12% moisture

Wheat.

AAC Redwater. Redwater is due to be demoted into the Northern Hard Red class of wheat in 2021. We have grown this variety commercially for 5 years and found that it always kept its color well and had decent protein and yield. We did find that in dryer years this variety tended to give up some yield for the early maturity. On years where yield potential was still high Redwater tended to lodge more than AAC Brandon and AAC Elie which both have excellent lodging resistance. This year Redwater yielded 15-20bu/ac less than Brandon and Elie on our farm though the protein was anywhere from 14-16.8%. We do not sell any AAC Redwater though many of our commercial wheat acres were AAC Redwater and it is popular in the area. We are looking to replace this early maturing variety with AAC Redberry from Alliance Seed which is in the CWRS class. Again we like to grow a mix of early and late hard red varieties to spread out when they are ready to combine.

AAC Brandon and AAC Elie. These wheats are siblings as they share common parent plants. We grew them on our farm across the road from one another, again trying to plant them on fields that are generally similar in yield and growing conditions to get a good comparison. We found both extremely easy to thresh but found Elie was slightly easier than the Brandon. The Elie yielded 6bu/ac higher than the Brandon, though the Brandon averaged 14.2% protein to the Elie’s 13.8%. Lodging resistance was excellent in both varieties up until the 6+ inches of snow we received in the middle of harvest. We found the Elie managed to stand up better after the snow and took less time to combine. The late maturity rating on these varieties gave them an edge of around 15-20bu/ac higher than Redwater that was grown commercially. We are happy with both these varieties and judging by Yield Alberta data they continue to be a couple of the highest yielding hard red varieties and are growing in popularity in our risk area.

The final note I want to add is that we are always looking into new varieties or crop kinds, flax, lentils, barley, cps wheat etc. With that being said we are open to suggestions of what to bring in and open to feedback on this review. Thanks for reading.

Scott Konieczny