Theses and Dissertations Collection

Small grain cereal crops dominate throughout dryland agricultural regions of the Pacific Northwest (PNW), where wheat is grown on 85% of the acreage. Available rotations crops include legumes (i.e. dry peas, lentils, or garbanzo beans) are only suited to the high rainfall areas where annual cropping is possible. Lack of economically viable alternative crops to grow in rotation with wheat has increased grower interest in growing spring and winter canola because these have shown beneficial effects on subsequent cereal productivity. Higher yielding canola cultivars combined with competitive prices has increased canola acreage in the PNW region. Although better adapted canola cultivars are now available to growers, few attempts have been made to optimize productivity through agronomic management of the crop. This experiment aims to address this and determine optimum agronomic conditions (nitrogen levels, seeding rates and seeding dates) to maximize grower's productivity and profitability of a range of adapted canola cultivars that cover the range of different rotation options of growers.