NOVEMBER 2017 GERMINATION.CA 23 Germination: As the 2017 harvest winds to a close, what’s on the minds of growers right now? Jim Bagshaw: A hot topic has been straight cutting of canola. Everyone’s talking about it — they’re tweeting #SelltheSwather. It’s a great manage- ment tool if conditions are right. We’ve seen a lot of success stories, but unfortunately straight cutting is not for every grower, situation and geography. We saw pictures recently of canola that was not combined and was destined to be straight cut, and after eight inches of snow it was flat on the ground and was going to be a nightmare to pick up. Pod shatter technology means under the right conditions, it can be straight cut. Under the wrong conditions, they’ll still need to swath, but they do have the option of straight cutting if the opportunity presents itself. Jim Downey: Farmers are looking at the crops they just grew, and they’re gazing into the rear view mirror. If they had issues, they often will be looking for a new variety to address those issues. Farmers are right now looking at production problems they had in 2017, but a big question is, will that get them to switch to a new variety? I often say that farmers think more about fertilizer and equipment than they do about variety selection, so if we can get them to focus on variety issues for more than 20 min- utes, we’re doing pretty good. Sarah Foster: Top-of-mind is yield — everyone wants the best yield they can get. Variety can have a lot to do with that, but it doesn’t just stop with that. Crop rotation is very important because it has a big bearing on what diseases are in the soil from previous crop years. Germination: What are growers looking for in terms of traits? JB: In 2018 we’ll see a shift back to Roundup Ready products. The InVigor system will still be the larg- est portion of market share, but we see more growers coming back to Roundup Ready. This is being driven by InVigor products having lost yield advantage — Roundup Ready options are yielding as good or better. JD: When it comes to wheat, some big issues include Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance, low protein, short straw, late maturity, sprouting resistance, threshability, and midge/ sawfly resistance. Many growers want higher protein because there’s big premiums this year. A few people might be looking to have taller straw, especially if they want to bale straw during a feed shortage, but short straw is still more desirable for most grain producers. Some people in the north who had a lot of rain, like northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, are thinking about earlier maturity, grade retention and sprouting resist- ance. Threshability often flies under the radar, but with rotary combines, many people aren’t as aggressive with threshing, and for those who’ve grown wheat varieties that give trou- ble, they’re looking for varieties with good threshability. Germination: Any disease concerns? JB: Clubroot is very much a topic of concern. Not a lot is known about it. It’s spreading quite rapidly. This is something growers need to manage, before it manages them. It’s been found in all Prairie provinces now. Where growers have clubroot infected fields, the Canola Council of Canada recommends growing only clubroot resistant canola and only once every four to five years before they grow canola again. Plus in many clubroot infected counties in Alberta, growers are now restricted where they must grow a clubroot resistant canola, which has limited them on product choice. We really tell grow- ers to get in front of it, manage it and limit risk. SF: In 2018 we may not see major infection problems because we’ve had a drier year overall, but in north- ern Alberta harvest went late because of late seeding, and if that seed sat out too long, you’ll see disease pres- sure — especially in canola — and sprouting in cereals. Germination: There are many new varieties out there, especially ones with disease resistance. What should growers be advised to watch out for? JB: While every company has clu- broot resistant canola varieties, for example, they’re not all the same. There are different genes used, some with higher levels of resistance or resistance to different strains of clubroot. Picking a clubroot resistant canola for an area that doesn’t have clubroot but is close to clubroot- infected areas is your best chance of avoiding the problem. JD: Some growers want to be early adopters and grow new stuff. My advice is often to wait a year. Seed is much more widely available and more reasonably priced the second year. And unexpected factors do crop up. An example is the wheat variety AAC Penhold. It’s widely grown in Alberta due to FHB resistance, but it’s not popular in Saskatchewan and Manitoba because grain markets/ handlers there don’t get critical mass, and don’t want to bring it into the elevators. SF: When it comes to Fusarium graminearum we have been encour- aging people to use a DNA test and not just a plate test. The plate test washes the seed before it’s put on the agar, so there’s a chance the spores on the surface will be washed off.As a result, plate tests can miss the Fusarium graminearum. If the DNA test is positive, but the plate is negative, we know we have a late infection and an appropriate seed treatment should be used. Germination: Clubroot is talked about a lot when it comes to canola, but what’s the status of blackleg? JB: Blackleg is still a bigger issue than clubroot across Western Canada.