Winter Canola in the Alabama: Benefits and Challenges for Double Cropping.

As winter canola expands in Alabama and other Southeastern States, farmers have new double-cropping opportunities other than the usual wheat and soybean protocol. Raising two crops per year in the same field is a time-honored practice in the south that helps increase revenues of producer and promotes conservation tillage. Many farmers in this region plant cotton, corn, soybeans, wheat and recently began to add winter canola in their rotation. Currently, winter canola is planted in the fall after corn, harvested in late spring and followed by soybean for the summer. However, in Alabama cotton remains the number one row crop and double-cropping it with winter canola would provide new rotation opportunities for farmers while expanding the production of this profitable new crop in the region. Preliminary research at Alabama A&M University indicates that early maturing winter canola allows cotton to be successfully planted as a double crop for the summer, while it is also feasible to plant winter canola following early harvested cotton in October. Numerous management factors remain unanswered regarding these new double-cropping schemes to allow full exploitation of winter canola. This report gives current findings of double-cropping  with winter canola in the region and examines the factors that are beneficial and challenging to the process.