Manitoba Canola Growers Association has released a report from its Canola On-Farm Research program.
The program started in 2022 with three trial types across 12 trial locations. It has since grown to include five trial types and 37 testing locations across Manitoba. The program aims to collaborate with farmers, agronomists, and researchers to provide the most relevant and valuable information to its members.
Amy Delaquis is Research and Agronomy Manager with Manitoba Canola Growers Association. She notes their Canola On-Farm Research program runs alongside other commodity groups in Manitoba.
"We work with farmers across the province to test different kinds of new and improved production practices on their farm," explains Delaquis. "So, they're typically field scale trials that we help farmers run."
She notes they take the data from the trials throughout the year, making sure that those trials are harvested and that the data is collected properly. Manitoba Canola Growers Association then analyzes the results, writes its report, and provides that information back to the farmers and to the other canola growers in Manitoba. This helps them understand how some of the new practices and products are performing at the farm level, in different areas of Manitoba and across different farm types.
The Canola On-Farm Research program results for 2024 are contained in a 32-page document. Last year's trial types included nitrogen rate, seeding rate, seed placed fertilizer toxicity, phosphorus source and cover cropping for flea beetle management.
"We did (last) year have a little bit different results than the past two years," says Delaquis, noting they will typically offer different trial types on different years, depending on what farmers are interested in.
"(Last) year for our nitrogen rate trials, we had six different locations that we tested nitrogen rates," says Delaquis. "And we actually saw that every farmer that we worked with, their rates that they were using on their farms were actually already sufficient for maximizing yield at those sites."
She notes they were not actually seeing yield bump from nitrogen; they were seeing other yield-limiting factors at those sites, other than nitrogen, which is different from previous years.
"We saw a much bigger impact on things like late season disease of verticillium and blackleg that was kind of the main driver for yield, as well as some environmental conditions as well," she points out.
Delaquis says all of this helps them to better understand where inputs fall in a given year.
According to Delaquis, there is definitely room for growth with this program and they welcome more growers and agronomists to take part. She notes they are always looking for those interested in participating as a farmer in the program. Those considering this, should contact the Manitoba Canola Growers Association. Similarly, they are more than happy to include more agronomists, which would then allow the Association to use an agronomist from a geographical area to work with a nearby farmer.
Meanwhile, in 2024, the Manitoba Canola Growers Association launched the Manitoba Canola Variety Evaluation Trials (CVET) with the purpose of providing farmers with independent third-party testing data for commercial canola hybrids. All seed companies were approached to enter varieties into the program. The 2024 trials were initiated at six different testing locations across Manitoba.
Delaquis says in the past, variety trials were run through a prairie-wide program called Canola Performance Trials (CPT), administered through Canola Council of Canada. The program ran across the three prairie provinces. Delaquis says the program was discontinued after 2022 due to a lack of interest from Saskatchewan and Alberta.
"We as Manitoba Canola Growers, our board really did see value in making sure that we had those independent variety evaluation trials happening," says Delaquis. "Because there's just so many varieties on the market for farmers and performance in Manitoba."
She notes they were the only independent trials for canola in Canada in 2024. Delaquis says it started off relatively small and the results from those trials are now included in their variety guide on their website. She notes they also include variety trial data from North Dakota State University, which has sites very close to the Canada/ U.S. border.
"We did see value in pulling some of that information and making sure farmers have access to that as well because they have some good data coming out of their program that is closer to a lot of our Manitoba canola growers than some of our sites even that are in the south," she says.
Delaquis says in the variety guide they tried to provide a broad overview to farmers of some of the other considerations when choosing variety. This can include different resistance for clubroot and blackleg and then considerations for other diseases like sclerotinia and verticillium, which might not have labelling systems on bags that are standardized across companies. She says these are things for farmers to keep in mind when considering some of those other disease pressures.
"Trying to have it as kind of a well-rounded one-stop resource for farmers," she says. "We made sure that we have links in there to all of the seed company data if farmers really want to dive in a little bit deeper to specifics of certain varieties."
Delaquis says Manitoba Canola Growers Association is really trying to grow these two programs in 2025. She notes they welcome questions and comments and hope to plan some field tours to the variety trials and on-farm sites.
Results can be viewed on the Manitoba Canola Growers Association website.