frost on freshly swathed canola..

[JDGreen]

so swathing this 50 bpa canola crop and lots of green areas , lots of area where there is 20% color change hill tops are starting to shell when the reel hits them . Swath is real heavy but calling for -5 on saturday morning. Whats going to happen to this canola?? Whats my worst and best case scenarios?? Will it still cure properly?? So many questions any answers out there?

[SASKFARMER3]

How soft were the seeds in green areas if you cant roll them with fingers they will shrivel up to nothing. Sounds like a doozer of a yield good for you guys. Next year. Rained .25 last night and soaked up every thing again.

[BreadWinner]

It sounds mature enough that if it was in the swath and it did freeze hard that you may only loose a grade. If it is firm it will not loose any yield. I still think it should be swathed to prevant damage deep into the swath. I would prefer mine in the swath before it freezes. If it freezes hard and it is still standing you could have allot of shelling afterwards if not cut right away. I cut mine with only %5 color change 3 weeks ago and we combined some today and it cured out just fine. 0 green and testing %9 moisture Yield is poor due to drowned out.

[JDGreen]

no you can roll the seeds between your fingers and they do not squash. Like ive said there are many seeds with color change in lots of areas but then right next to them they are still green. I've seen you north guys swath it like this before, but we dont as a rule because we lock the green in the dry warm conditions we usually have. Yes SF3 it is a doozy of a crop but not convinced i will get it. How long to cure this sucker?? 4 weeks??

[TOM4CWB]

jd,

I just swathed a canola field and did it at 24 ft instead of 30 ft.

If you have autotrak just set tracking at 24 ft... it worked very well on angle corners.

Cutting the swath back in size will help it cure out more quickly.

[Klause]

If its cool and wet it will cure even if it is totally
green. Your best case scenareo is that the top of the
swath will have some white seeds in it. Depends
how finicky the elevator is going to be with grading.

You're following Eastern rules now... not your own
out there. As long as you don't have any half-
empty pods, or flowers on the top of the plant you
can swath. I have yet to find a field of canola that's
at 35% color change end-to-end. There's always
some greener, some riper. Interesting that it's
shelling on you though...


If you get a real bad frost it's gonna go right
through the swath... but for that it needs to be at -
5 or greater for a couple of hours.

[furrowtickler]

Tom, do you use a swath roller? We went the other way, 36ft with no swath roller - cures just as soon or sooner the smaller rolled swaths. We feel that more air can move through the swath. No one who rolled their swath could move yesterday.

[TOM4CWB]

furrow,

I have a Mandanko mounted roller on springs. It is adjustable and strive to be half way between and form a good swath but not pack it too much. When I took 24ft the center of the swath is much thinner and yet still the same width if d****r speed is set right to speed. 6mph in wet/rainy layed nice swath.