New Canola Counts Tool Helps Growers Assess and Improve Plant Stands

The Canola Council of Canada has launched Canola Counts, a new crowd-sourced survey that helps map canola plant densities and emergence percentages.

The tool can be accessed through CanolaCalculator.ca, or CanolaCounts.ca.

Autumn Barnes, Agronomy Specialist at the Canola Council of Canada, explains how it works.

"What growers would be doing is going out into the field. When you’re out there, count plants and get an average plant density for the field, and then you can open up CanolaCounts.ca on your mobile device in the field, auto-locate yourself, enter your plant density information and it will calculate your emergence for you, and then you submit. It only takes about a minute and then you get a really helpful summary email, so if you're out counting plants and scouting fields for clients or farmers, you can easily email the results to them. At the end of each season, there will be an email sent out with maps of what emergence and plant density looked like across the prairies."

"Many canola fields are still averaging 50 to 60 per cent emergence, which means that of every 10 seeds planted, four or five of them fail to emerge or contribute to yield. "Assessing plant stands in every field, every year will help farmers and agronomists identify challenges and implement changes to plant establishment practices to achieve the recommended target of five to eight plants per square foot."

Research shows that stands of five to six plants per square foot yield about five bushels per acre more than stands that average two to three plants per square foot.

Each field that is entered at CanolaCounts.ca is also entered for the chance to win weekly gift cards for spring or fall counts. There will also be a prize for the user who enters the most fields in each prairie province.

The online tool was created in part by the Canola Council of Canada with funding from Alberta Canola, SaskCanola, and the Manitoba Canola Growers.