Canola groups recap research priorities at Canola Week

Dec 05, 2024

At this year’s Canola Week, representatives from Alberta Canola Producers, SaskOilseeds and Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) presented an overview of each group’s research focus over the past year and moving forward.

Brittany Visscher, research director at Alberta Canola Producers, says their funding targets for 2024-25 include disease management, resistant weed management, flea beetle management, optimized nutrient uptake efficiency, water management and more.

“They’re not ranked from most important to least important, because they’re all important. However, number one, the majority of the respondents prioritized improving yield stability under environmental extremes as number one,” says Visscher.

Doug Heath, research manager at SaskOilseeds, recalls how SaskCanola amalgamated with SaskFlax to form SaskOilseeds earlier this year. Heath spoke about their free disease testing program for farmers that focuses on blackleg, verticillium and clubroot. In 2024, they received samples for 133 individual fields; the results showed 112 samples with Lepstosphaeria maculans (L. maculans) only, eight had L. biglobosa only, 13 had neither and 18 had Verticillium longisporum. They’re still waiting for results for clubroot. In conjunction with that program, they helped to host disease field training days for agronomists.

Heath says they continued their on-farm research trials, launched in 2023 with nine sites across the province. This year, they expanded to 25 sites. “The program aims to help producers answer questions that they have that are specific to their farm, so producers are able to try a practice or a product on their own farm using their own equipment and existing practices,” says Heath. “The important part of these trials is that they’re randomized and replicated in your field, to help account for field variability and to take some of the anecdotal evidence that might come out if you’re just looking at a single strip.”

Amy Delaquis, research and agronomy manager at MCGA, says their funding targets include flea beetle management, verticillium stripe, nutrient management, yield stability in environmental extremes, profitability risks and opportunities, as well as commercial hybrid evaluation. Disease and insects were the two research areas with the largest funding in the past year, with 36 per cent going toward disease and 21 per cent allocated to insects.

Their canola variety trial program launched in 2024 with the goal of providing farmers access to independent, third-party field-testing data for commercial hybrids. “This program has proven,” says Delaquis, “even in its first year, from interest, as the program launched during the season, as well as after these results went out, that this is our most highly sought out information from our members.”

Video: Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Understanding how a plant responds to stress is one thing.

Using that knowledge to make better management decisions is another.

Systemic acquired resistance, or SAR, is the plant's more direct defense response. When stress or infection occurs, the plant begins signaling throughout its system and preparing defensive compounds.

But if we know that response exists, can we help prepare the plant before the stress arrives?

The answer starts with understanding what triggers the response and what the plant needs to carry it out.

The Trigger and the Fuel

Salicylic acid plays an important role in triggering the SAR pathway.

Think of it as turning the truck on.

The engine may be running, but it still needs fuel to do the work.

In this case, manganese plays an important role in supporting the enzyme systems involved in the plant's defensive response.

This makes manganese status an important part of the conversation. Whether a producer is using tissue testing, sap analysis, or simply scouting for visible deficiency symptoms, the goal is to make sure the plant has adequate manganese available.

Manganese is required in relatively small amounts, but that does not make its role small.

If the plant receives a signal to defend itself but lacks the nutrition needed to support that response, it may struggle to carry out the process efficiently.

The trigger matters.

The fuel matters too.

Prepare Before the Stress Arrives

The best time to think about stress management is before the plant is overwhelmed.

Once a crop is already struggling, management can quickly turn into a game of catch-up.

This is similar to nitrogen management. Once a plant becomes severely deficient, correcting the problem does not necessarily erase the time and yield potential already lost.

Plant defense can work the same way.

Low-rate, targeted approaches designed to support the SAR pathway may fit best ahead of an expected stress event rather than after significant damage has already occurred.

That requires producers to think about predictable stress.

We may not know exactly what the weather will do tomorrow, but we generally know summer heat is coming. We know certain field conditions increase disease pressure. We know a herbicide application can temporarily stress a crop as the plant processes the chemistry.

Even a properly timed and labeled herbicide application can create a temporary response in the plant.

That does not mean the herbicide is bad.

Weeds can create significantly more yield loss than the temporary stress caused by controlling them.

The question is not whether we should eliminate every stressor.

The question is whether we can better prepare the plant to manage necessary and predictable stress.

Not All Stress Is Bad

Stress is a normal part of plant growth.

A perfectly stress-free environment does not exist in the field.

In fact, some stress is necessary for normal plant development. A plant responds to wind, temperature, moisture, sunlight, and countless other environmental signals throughout the season.

The environment is stress.

The plant's job is to manage it.

Problems begin when the stress load becomes greater than the plant's ability to respond.

Extreme heat, drought, high salt concentrations, disease pressure, and even certain management practices can add to that load.

This is where understanding SAR becomes useful.

Instead of waiting until the plant is visibly struggling, producers can begin identifying periods when stress is likely and make management decisions around those windows.

ISR Starts With the Soil

While SAR is a more direct defense response, induced systemic resistance, or ISR, brings the conversation back to soil health.

The longevity of a farm is closely connected to the health of its soil.

Carbon plays a major role because it supports biological life within the soil. Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms interact with plant roots and influence how the plant grows, accesses nutrients, and prepares for stress.

This is why soil health cannot be reduced to one product or one application.

It is a system.

Keeping living plants in the field longer can support biological activity. Cover crops may fit some operations. Better water management can improve soil conditions.