Winter canola is proving a little hardier in weathering a late spring freeze than wheat.
About 50,000 acres of canola are planted in Oklahoma, with some additional acreage in Southern Kansas and the Texas panhandle.
“Canola is a very winter hardy plant. It’s handled the cold well,” says Heath Sanders, an Oklahoma State University agronomist.
OSU started growing small demonstration plots of canola in 2003. A cooperative within the state started crushing canola oil last year, creating a regional market.
Gene Neuens, manager of Producers Cooperative Oil Mill in Oklahoma City, said his plant has the capacity to crush 700,000 acres of canola and is bringing some in from out of state. Rotating it with just five percent of Oklahoma’s wheat acres would result in 500,000 acres, he said.
Ray Bullis and his son Chris are so optimistic about canola that they recently invested $30,000 in a “pusher,” a machine that flattens the tall spidery foliaged plants so they shatter less and dry more uniformly before being picked up and harvested with a conventional combine. Only one company in Canada makes the equipment worldwide. They plan to do some custom work for other canola growers. Two other similar machines in the state are intended to help improve harvest of the tiny black seeds.
“Canola has been pretty good to us so far,” Ray Bullis said. Last year, he raised 300 acres, followed that up with 250 this year, and he’s looking at planting 350 acres next fall, maybe more if wheat seed is in short supply.
Last year Bullis harvested 45 bushels to the acre and sold the seed for $12 a bushel. He hasn’t contracted this year’s crop but says prices are currently around $8 a bushel. The freeze damage is also likely to reduce yields compared to a year ago.
Plant breeders are making progress in developing new varieties better suited to the Southern Plains. Canola has a much longer production history in Europe, Canada and the Northern Great Plains.
“You never have two years the same in Oklahoma,” Sanders says. “Each year we grow canola we learn new things.”
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Winter canola is proving a little hardier in weathering a late spring freeze than wheat.
About 50,000 acres of canola are planted in Oklahoma, with some additional acreage in Southern Kansas and the Texas panhandle.
“Canola is a very winter hardy plant. It’s handled the cold well,” says Heath Sanders, an Oklahoma State University agronomist.
OSU started growing small demonstration plots of canola in 2003. A cooperative within the state started crushing canola oil last year, creating a regional market.
Gene Neuens, manager of Producers Cooperative Oil Mill in Oklahoma City, said his plant has the capacity to crush 700,000 acres of canola and is bringing some in from out of state. Rotating it with just five percent of Oklahoma’s wheat acres would result in 500,000 acres, he said.
Ray Bullis and his son Chris are so optimistic about canola that they recently invested $30,000 in a “pusher,” a machine that flattens the tall spidery foliaged plants so they shatter less and dry more uniformly before being picked up and harvested with a conventional combine. Only one company in Canada makes the equipment worldwide. They plan to do some custom work for other canola growers. Two other similar machines in the state are intended to help improve harvest of the tiny black seeds.
“Canola has been pretty good to us so far,” Ray Bullis said. Last year, he raised 300 acres, followed that up with 250 this year, and he’s looking at planting 350 acres next fall, maybe more if wheat seed is in short supply.
Last year Bullis harvested 45 bushels to the acre and sold the seed for $12 a bushel. He hasn’t contracted this year’s crop but says prices are currently around $8 a bushel. The freeze damage is also likely to reduce yields compared to a year ago.
Plant breeders are making progress in developing new varieties better suited to the Southern Plains. Canola has a much longer production history in Europe, Canada and the Northern Great Plains.
“You never have two years the same in Oklahoma,” Sanders says. “Each year we grow canola we learn new things.”
