Oilseeds for Fuel, Feed and the Future
Innovations Grant
Report
2008 Juncea (brown canola) Field Trials
What follows is a summary for the on-farm juncea production trials during 2008 on one farm in NE Montana. The answers to the questions are provided by Marc Cartwright of Miles City, who oversaw the on-farm trials of juncea in 2007 and 2008. The on-farm trials in 2008 were limited due to changes in farmer cooperator crop plans for 2008.
There is reference to a spreadsheet in question 3. That spreadsheet is worth examining to see what the production and price points are at this stage for juncea.
1) Is there any yield increase of a small grains crop following juncea?
Since 2008 was a drought year for crop production, it is very hard to conclude accurately if there was any yield boost on 2008 small grain after ‘07 juncea production. Prior research data would show that there should be around 15% yield enhancement in small grain following a rapeseed/canola type crop.
2) Any yield data on a second year of growing juncea on the same farm?
Gregg LaBatte was the only juncea grower in 2008. Gregg’s farm south of Froid, MT was very drought stricken and the juncea yielded about 280 lbs/ac. The yellow mustard which bordered the juncea performed equally as well.
3) What are the input costs for raising juncea compared to wheat?
Please see the attached spreadsheet (MS Excel / 30K). Realizing that every farmer will have their own unique crop budgets for their specific operation, I placed what I would consider “average” costs of production into this spreadsheet.
Juncea input costs are slightly larger than the spring wheat comparison primarily due to seed costs. Juncea costs for seeding, pesticide applications, harvesting, fertilizer and herbicide should be about equal to spring wheat production. Some would argue that fertilizer and herbicide costs should be slightly larger for juncea production. I did utilize a slightly higher value for herbicide cost but left fertilizer cost equal.
Hopefully, crop rotation benefits of the juncea could have shown another positive aspect and offset the economic difference in production cost. Maybe further data down the road will support this. The addition of another separate commodity in the farm operation should spread risk for producers as well.
4) Are there any special management issues that emerged in the farm trials?
Need more cooperation from Mother Nature – either lack of rain, hail and/or too hot in the heart of the growing season provided our inconsistent results in 2007 and 2008.
Pioneer Hi-Bred, Int’l will be evaluating the juncea product line to determine further potential. On paper, the juncea product looks very exciting with supposedly more genetic tolerance for heat and drought stress over traditional canola, plus non-shattering to provide a straight cut harvest (same as small grain production). Were the growing conditions too severe for juncea in 2007 and 2008 or does Pioneer Hi-Bred Int'l need further R&D to provide a more consistent performing product?
None of our juncea growers had terrible weed control, but lack of herbicide technology options (i.e. Liberty Link, Clearfield or Round-up Ready which are available in traditional canola production) is a huge stumbling block with potential customers currently.
5)
Proposed planting rate study of 4.5, 5.5, 6.5 and 7.5 lbs/ac?
No cooperators were found to conduct the proposed planting rate study and therefore no data to report.
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