Optimizing Canola Production: Fertilization, Crop Protection and Genetic Yield Potential

Canola production has become increasingly reliant on purchased inputs. New technologies, whether they are improved genetics, crop protection, or fertilizers, all claim to provide the farmer with incremental yield benefits that will help increase profits. This research project tests the performance of low, medium, and high levels of fertilization, pesticides, and genetic yield potential on canola yield, quality, and profitability.

Canola yields varied considerably in this study across the three years and three trial locations. The yield responses recorded from the combined application of inputs at low, medium, or high levels were impacted significantly by local weather and pest extremes. While gross revenues generally increased with the progressive addition of inputs from low to medium to higher levels, the margin (or profit) per acre rarely increased in a similar manner. When the final grain yield potential was high, the net return for intensive use of crop inputs also tended to be high. However, the inability to predict the environmental impact on the maximum potential seed yield increased the risk of using a high level of crop production inputs. Considering individual groups of inputs, applying high rates of fertilizer provided the largest increase in yield and gross revenue, when other inputs were also employed at the high rate. Management of pesticides at the high level resulted in the largest increase in cost of production, supporting the need to use field scouting and weather monitoring when making decisions on pesticide applications. As expected, the actual total yield increase from application of all inputs at a high level was less than the sum of the equivalent responses for each individual group of inputs, reducing the potential increase in yield and profit for the intensive cropping system as a whole. The results of this study clearly indicate that canola is a high risk crop to grow. Given the crop’s large range in yield response due to environmental factors, the risk associated with high input management requires close attention to all diagnostic tools available to the farmer before making input decisions. MB-17F