The annual CanoLAB canola management workshop series continues to extend its Manitoba footprint with a first-time event in Dauphin March 15 and 16.
Topics ranged from combine settings and herbicide management to crop damage and beneficial insects.
It is the fifth year the event has been held in Manitoba, after initially being introduced in Alberta by the Canola Council of Canada. The Dauphin event was co-hosted by the Manitoba Canola Growers Association and was the third and final workshop to take place across the Prairies in 2017.
“Coming to Dauphin was something that we wanted to do for a while, but we felt like we needed to have sort of a critical mass and have some of the kinks worked out before we brought CanoLAB to Dauphin. We’re thrilled to be here,” said Roberta Galbraith, Manitoba Canola Growers Association member relations manager.
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“It’s important for us as the Manitoba Canola Growers and the Canola Council to support growers (here) because it’s one of the largest canola-growing regions in Manitoba,” Galbraith said.
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The event previously took place in Brandon and sold out for the last three years.
This year, March 15 came three spots short of selling out, while the workshop’s second day had 15 vacancies, Galbraith said, adding that a higher proportion of attendees were farmers than in previous years.
“It’s the farmers who we want to reach — lots of agronomists and industry staff here as well, but at the end of the day, it’s our farmers who are managing the crop. So for us, that’s who we want to talk to,” she said.
Justine Cornelsen, western Manitoba agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, was one of the experts called in for the event.
One of three to run the “look-a-likes” station, Cornelsen took participants through diagnosing crop damage in the field.
“One of the main things we were focusing on was root symptoms,” she said. “So when you’re seeing this girdling of the root, it can be caused by a wide variety of things. It could be caused by blackleg. It could be caused by root rot species. It could be caused by too much moisture. It could be caused by cutworms feeding. There’s all these different things that could fit into why we’re seeing these symptoms, so it’s teaching producers and agronomists to follow that up, figure out what is going on in the field so they can then change their management practices or at least monitor in years to come and be aware of the situation that they’re dealing with.”
Grain storage practices, harvest management to reduce loss in combining, the nitrogen cycle and herbicide planning in crop rotations were also among topics covered in the workshop.
Jim Wilson, retired co-ordinator for extension pesticide education at South Dakota University, gave a hands-on account of temperature inversions, a factor he says may encourage pesticide drift as fine droplets of product become suspended in cool, dense air.
Attendees also took on soil compaction, an area of interest after a year that saw high precipitation through 2016, thus increasing risk. Speakers advised attendees to beware of tire overinflation, minimize passes on wet fields and partially fill grain carts to lessen weight.
“Every session’s been a little bit new,” Cory Brasch of Grandview said. “Some of the combine settings, nitrogen take-up — everything’s had something that I’ve taken away.”
His first time attending the event, Brasch decided to make the trip after hearing feedback from prior participants.
Boris Michaleski, another first-time attendee who farms south of Dauphin, singled out discussions on herbicide management and harvest losses as major takeaways, adding he plans to integrate knowledge from the latter discussion into his operations.
“It’s interesting, covering a lot of good topics,” he said of the workshop.
CanoLAB integrated efforts from Assiniboine Community College’s agribusiness program, which provided plants used in demonstrations. Students from the program were on hand both days to help manage the workshop.
“It’s certainly grown,” Galbraith said. “We’ve become more sophisticated in how we manage all the sessions and we’ve listened to the people who have come and said, ‘We want more of this,’ or, ‘We want more of that,’ and we’ve tried to drive a bit of the conversation in that respect.”
CanoLAB events were also held Feb. 15-16 in Saskatchewan and Feb. 22-23 in Alberta.
