I always find this to be an interesting tour. Cat and her crew do a good job. Take home points for me this year (June 13th) are the following:
--Canola: A large trial plot with a number of different cultivar from different companies. The plots all looked good, well into flowering. The plots, visually, looked significantly better than the canola field that bordered the plots. The field was streaky with, generally, thinner stand with fewer flowers, and the streaks being shorter and flowers turned white, and I didn't notice pods developing. The cooperator prepared the field and plot area the same, applying 80ppa N, 10ppa S. The field was seeded at 5ppa of canola seed. The plot was seeded a week later and had an additional 5gpa of Kickstart for fertility, and was seeded at 6ppa of seed. That is a lot of seed. My preliminary information indicates that the Kickstart was the only difference, other than the type of drill used. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of Kickstart showing that much difference, but it was obvious right to the border that encircled the plot site. Maybe waiting a week later helped the plot site. Foliar feeding has shown some potential benefit, with the best timing being early rosette stage before rapid biomass increase. [ Earlier, I conversed with Brian Caldbeck, of Caldbeck Consulting. A couple of useful comments were: --1) he likes 6-7 established plants/sf, and not to count emerged plants because some will not survive. --2) space the seed out. When seed clumps together only one or two seeds will germinate. The others just sit there doing nothing. --3) hybrids tend to divide out as tall with slender branch spread and shorter with wider branch spread. He prefers tall/slender on 7"-10" spacing and short/wide on 10"-15" row spacing.
--Wireworm: They infest a lot of crop acreage and can do damage to yield. Wireworms are the larva form of the Click Beetle. They emit a clicking sound, and are highly attracted to the color of white. An easy check is to park a white pickup in/by the field you are scouting, --if they are there, they will be all over the pickup. Wireworms prefer soil temperatures in the 55-75ºF range with moisture. They dive deep when soil temperature reaches ≥ 80ºF. McGregor has found that a lot of perceived chemical damage is actually wireworm damage. Wireworms are more widely spread then we realize. Click Beetles survive in grasslands and crop residue. Natural predators are: rodents, birds, bats, frogs, lizards, predatory beetles, predatory wasps, predatory mites, Lacewings, spiders, and preying mantises. Seed treat with Terassa is quite effective for control.
--Seed Treats: Terassa seems effective for wireworm control. Systiva seems effective for Rhizoctonia. Relenya seems effective for Bunt Smut. The Guardian Blend controls 20 diseases, but not wireworm.
--Fertility: Zinc is best applied to seed compared to in row, side band, broadcast. Zinc is the #1 limiting micronutrient in Pacific Northwest. Nitrogen applied at Tillering stage is best timing; however, stabilized N applied at time of seeding has given best yield. Use foliar feed for needed elements found through SAP testing at flag leaf stage.
--Wheat: Early-Late seeding. Best yields appear to develop when seeding early with a late maturing cultivar, and when seeding late, choose an early maturing cultivar. Winter wheats: Shine is highly susceptible to dryland foot rot while Blackjack is tolerant to dryland foot rot. M-Pire has high tolerance to grassy herbides. --with an awned wheat, awnes indicate developing kernel. A stubby(short) awn is questionable for development. An exercise Cat had us do related to early-medium-late seeding of winter wheat. Seeding dates for the same cultivar was Sept. 15th, Oct. 15th, Nov. 15th. In all cases the heads were very similar in development. The main difference was the number of tillers. The lesson here was, plant higher seed rate as you go farther into late fall to compensate for lack of ability to tiller.
--Herbicide treatments: This trial consisted of some common herbicides with different mixes and sprayed across several cultivar types to see the crop reaction. Effectiveness of the treatments varied. It was pointed out that Clethodim, Paraquat, and Glyphosate needed water conditioning to improve effectiveness.
--RO Water: Like last year, I think Cat used distilled water in 2023 and called it RO (reverse osmosis) water, but it's not! McGregor's interest in RO water came about because of the buzz around a few operations using processed water and cutting chemical rates. The trials looked poor and their warnings about escapements and potential for developing resistance are valid. In 2023, there are 9 active water processing units serving ~ 14 farm/ranch operations in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. Since 2020 a group of us have been looking into the Pursanova Water System. This system first filters the water, then run it through a reverse osmosis (RO) unit, and then on through "structure" tubes containing beads of specific types of ores. These are not random rocks. For more information about water see my posts on "Pursanova -- RO/S Water" by clicking on the "water" label. There is a lot more to water than we generally recognize.
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