Effects Of Manure and Boron Application On Early Vigor and Stand Establishment Of Canola (Brassica napus L.).

Canola is a small seeded crop, which leads to challenges in establishing an adequate and vigorous plant stand. Management strategies that produce more reliable canola stands are needed. Preliminary studies indicated that manure application may improve early vigor and establishment of winter canola to a greater extent than can be attributed to the manure’s inorganic macronutrient content alone. To test this, one winter and one spring canola trial were conducted in 2012 at the Elora Research Station in Ontario, Canada. Main plot treatments included i) a check, ii) liquid dairy manure (LDM), iii) water applied in the same volume as the LDM, and iv) a liquid starter fertilizer with the same volume, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur and boron (B) content as the LDM. Each main plot treatment was sub-divided into three seeding rates (normal, low, and very low). Additionally, the hypothesis that the B component of manure is responsible for the observed enhancement of vigor was examined through a second spring canola trial and a supplementary controlled environment experiment in 2013. These trials added an additional treatment of liquid starter fertilizer that did not include B. Treatments were evaluated with canopy reflectance spectroscopy as well as yield analysis in the field trials; in the greenhouse, leaf spectral reflectance and early growth biomass were measured. Results to date indicate that application of LDM significantly enhances early vigor, but that these effects can be fully replicated using starter fertilizer with the identical macronutrient content.