When the gravity pulling your crop down to the ground is stronger than the counter forces keeping it standing, lodging will occur. Crop lodging causes serious losses of yield and quality in many crops grown in Western Canada, especially cereals. Assessing the root cause of lodging and taking measures to help prevent it are key for guaranteeing crop standability and preserving yield and quality.
Brassinosteroids (BRs) are growth hormones from the steroid family that are found in all plant species. They have a high-growth promoting activity, particularly in pollen and anthers, and take their name from the pollen of canola (Brassica napus), where they were initially discovered. BRs are involved in the control of cell division, elongation and differentiation throughout the growing season and are crucial for plant growth and development. And, acting as growth regulators, they are essential to many responses to stress.
Lodging occurs when the crop falls over and does not return to a standing position. Crop lodging can be very costly to producers and can pose many challenges during harvest. For instance, it is common to see secondary growth on the flattened crop extending maturity and diminishing grain quality.
For the past couple of years, harvest in some parts of the Prairies has been interrupted by heavy snow fall, leaving millions of acres for producers to deal with in the spring. If you’re a grower who has been in this situation, you know that a lodged crop can take twice as many resources to harvest than a standing one.
Not only is it a challenge to take off the field, a lodged crop can have a significant reduction in value. If the crop lodges at ear emergence, yields can be reduced by up to 75 per cent. Although later lodging has less effect on yield, it can impact grain quality, harvest speeds and drying costs.
Continue reading to learn more about crop lodging and what can be done to avoid it, so you are not caught with your plants down.
Plant growth regulators (PGRs) and plant growth stimulators (PGSs) are naturally-occurring or synthetic compounds that, when applied to plants, modify their physiological processes, and growth and development habits. In plant cells, they stimulate specific enzymes or pathways and help regulate metabolism.
The term “PGR” is widely used in Western Canada to refer to products that are sprayed on wheat to shorten the height of the crop, while PGSs are designed to be incorporated into a well-balanced nutrition program to achieve a better uptake of nutrients, enhanced growth and development, better seed, fruit or tuber set, improved crop standability and more. Producers looking to preserve yield and profitability are encouraged to take a closer look at PGSs.
