Nutrient Uptake and Partitioning in Winter Canola.

Optimum nutrient management should be pursued in order to maximize canola yield production. Following that rationale, nutrient uptake and removal values are critical for diagnosing plant nutrient programs for canola, more precisely for P and K nutrients. The main issue faced by the scientific community is that the lack of available public- or private-sector information about nutrient management for canola. In addition, less is known related to the crop nutrient dynamic, content and distribution within the plant (different fractions) as the growing season progresses (at exception for N). Balanced nutrition largely influences winter survival, consequently impacting yields. In general, winter canola presents a high requirement for N, P, and S. Canola yield and nutrient uptake is generally highly associated with a good N nutrition. The crop N requirement is greater as compared with different cereal crops. In overall, the amount of N needed per unit of yield ranges from 2.5 to 3.6 lbs N/bushel. For P and K, crop removal values are around 0.9 lbs P₂O₅/bu and 0.45 lbs K₂O/bu. Still, there are many uncertainties as related to those coefficients. Further research information needs to be gathered for properly understanding the source of variation of those nutrient removal coefficients and for arriving to a more general agreement in the values previously summarized for winter canola crop. Furthermore, too often total plant nutrient content or grain nutrient removal calculations are based on overly simplistic and constant nutrient concentration assumptions. The objective of this project is to illustrate the changing plant nutrient uptake dynamics for canola during the entire growing season period. In addition, information for nutrient requirements/removals in canola at varying yields will be obtained from this research project.