SPRING SEEDING 2018

<--Last year our spring Canola never had this much color, --and our yield reflected the fact.  Last year, three weeks of +/- 100 degree heat beat up all spring crops in the area and caught our canola at the start of bloom.
       This pic shows a week of bloom.  It appears to take about a week to reach maximum color. Hopefully we will see this for another couple of weeks (or more).

    This spring we seeded spring canola, and a field with a cover crop mix.  No other spring crop was drilled, neither cereal or legume.   At SJ/Ewan we seeded canola at 5#/a on 10" rows @ ≥1" and Thornton we seeded 5#/a on 10" @≤1" depth with the CrossSlot drill.  The cultivar was a HighClass RR variety so that we could get another whack at Rattail Fescue and Downy Brome with Roundup.
   Early Field evaluation:
       In general, it appears that 5#/a provides  a high population, --good/bad(?)
       We have holes in the stand.  The small in-row holes are likely do to the low seeding rate of a very small seed metered through our old valmar air delivery system.  Any motion or attitude change of the drill will cause slight deceleration or acceleration of seed delivery with this type metering system.  
        The Large holes involving several openers or the whole drill width are a different story.  The tall heavy residue is playing a part.  Scouting and evaluating the canola stand the past 2-3 weeks have led us to the conclusion that we should leave a seeded field with the residue flat on the ground, and seed no shallower than 1.25".  The canola stand at SJ/Ewan is very good, but Thornton is a different story.  There are a lot of holes.  There are plants struggling through tangled, half height  residue, and areas where the seed didn't get into the ground sufficiently.  Thornton fields were wet and cold.  We shallowed up the seeding depth and reduced opener down pressure, --a mistake!  When we think back over the years of planting with the CrossSlot, we have never had a problem of emerging a crop from seeding too deep, --the problems, when developed,  have always been from seeding too shallow.  
        The technology developed in the CrossSlot opener has the ability to emerge a crop from greater depths than is normally acceptable under the "conditions", but it is difficult to break the mindset of shallowing up seeding depth with cold wet soil.  With a "seasoned" field (one with years of low disturbance no-till), which we have, water drains rapidly, --and the soil warms quickly when disturbed in the drilling process.

<--This pic shows a Thornton field with tall, heavy residue. You can see holes in the stand, which, unfortunately, there are many.  At first we thought it may be chemistry since this is an area that had an abundance of Canadian Thistle.  It turns out to be that the seed was placed too shallow, or the mat to thick.  That's easily corrected for another year, --set the drill a little deeper and apply a little more down pressure.
    The Flea Beetle has been a problem in some fields but we don't see any evidence of that pest.  One symptom of their presence is where they severe cotyledons leaving bare patches in the field.  Cold, damp, slow growing conditions favor that type damage.  

<--This pic, taken earlier, shows the visual difference between tall, heavy residue in the background and no residue in the foreground.
The canola in the background looks rough, but it actually is a good stand.  In a week or two,  I'll add a pic from this same location. 
      The lack of residue in the foreground  makes the field look a lot better, --but I think it is only visual.  This piece (foreground) is new to us, very wet, never direct seeded.  This area had some standing water when we did our preplant Roundup application, but we were able to drill it without difficulty. 
      At SJ we also have ~50a where we replaced our regular fertility with fish, sea salt, humid acid.  We're participating with a group to learn more about "biologicals".  I think I've called these "snake oil" in the past.  I'll address our experience with this later in another post.  At this point in time it isn't impressive, --we'll see.

<--[Update: 6/27 pic]  The same area as above with canola in full bloom.   This pic is zoomed out further.  Both the foreground and background looks very good.  We have experienced good weather for the canola bloom this year.  Some areas on the plants are showing evidence of some cold nights.
     Unfortunately there are two other fields that don't look this good.  Recent evaluation of these fields haven't changed our earlier conclusion, --seeded to shallow for the amount of residue that exists on some of the areas.  Canola doesn't like wet feet, but this condition was short lived as other wet areas with good stands attest.

    Evaluating the Cover Crop field:  I updated the "Cover Crop" page to reflect what has been done for the spring of 2018.  Another update will be added when we decide how and when we will terminate the stand.