Canola’s in, but watch your outputs: Sask. agronomist

A Saskatchewan agronomist is predicting that canola will maintain its reign as the hot crop of the season in 2023.

Ryan Moellenbeck with Cargill said the recent high prices for the crop won’t go unnoticed.

“It’s been very profitable over the last number of years, and I think we’re going to see a lot of acres go in again this year,” said Moellenbeck.

He also predicted that malt, barley and wheat will stay strong, while there will be fewer acres of pulse crops like peas and lentils planted in the coming season.

“A lot of growers are still experiencing issues with soil-borne root diseases, and they’re just becoming harder and harder to grow profitably,” the agronomist explained.

The diseases affecting crops can be partially attributed to weather, Moellenbeck said, as a number of diseases that occur naturally in the soil become more prevalent when soil becomes moist.

As crops are grown in tighter rotations, Moellenbeck said the rates of of soil-borne diseases will also grow.

Moellenbeck said he isn’t expecting any major shifts in planting schematics for farmers this year. Although some farmers did have a hard season last year, he said many acres yielded very good crops.

“There’s a lot of optimism, I think,” he said.

“I think guys are just going to look at what’s going to return a good yield and do the best they can to grow a good crop, and hopefully the weather co-operates.”

His main piece of advice this year was for farmers to consider their outputs as much as their inputs.

The agronomist said growers have a fairly good idea of what this year’s inputs will be, but keeping an eye on what they can expect to fetch for their crops and putting some protections in place for themselves will be important, he said.