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Canola--has its time arrived?By Richard C. Snell Barton County Extension Agent, agriculture Kansas This past year we had more acres of canola grown than in the previous history of Barton County. The results were mixed. It was all planted in the southeast part of the county, down in the sandy soil south of Ellinwood. Most of you know that the wheat in that area was some of the worst in the county due to more spring freeze injury. Since canola has a similar life cycle to wheat, it was hurt pretty badly. The canola also was hit hard by army cutworms who thought it was like candy. What exactly is canola anyway? It is a broadleaf winter annual crop that is rapeseed. The word rape came from the Latin word "rapum" which means turnip. Rapeseed is in the same family and similar in appearance to cabbage, turnips, mustard, rutabaga and Brussel sprouts. The negative association of the word caused the Canadians to change the name of the edible--low erucic form to Canola, which is short for Canada Oil. Erucic acid gave some problems to livestock and human and thus for along time rapeseed oil was used strictly for industrial purposes until they found away to genetically get this acid out. Like many crops, canola can be of the winter or spring type. The winter type can be grown in Alabama, while in Canada and North Dakota it is the lower yield potential, spring type. Well, enough on the basics. What a farmer really needs to know is--yes you can sell it within 50 miles of here and you can obtain seed readily. You need to plant winter canola (what does best here) earlier than wheat. Between late August through Sept. 20 are the best dates in our area. Obviously this changes with location. If you are interested in canola, there is a publication called the "Great Plains Canola Handbook" which we have at the extension office. Good fall harvest anticipated After what happened with the wheat this spring, I hate to speak too soon or I might bring hail or hurricane force winds. However, it looks like we could have a terrific fall harvest of corn and milo. Most of our crops had enough topsoil moisture early that they never stressed, but didn't root down deep. Thus, even though we still have good subsoil moisture, some of it is just out of reach. I did some digging the other day in a field and man was the surface hard, but once you broke through, it was easy. The heat and lack of rain in August may have hurt the soybeans a little, but not drastically. The cane hay crops look good too. Date: 9/21/07
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