Monitoring Canola Storage 'Extremely Important' This Winter

This week's Manitoba Agriculture crop report stated that there was about six per cent of the canola crop that remained unharvested.

 

Justine Cornelsen is an agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada (CCC).

 

"There's still a little bit of crop left out...We've had snow for the last month and it's not going anywhere," she said. "I think we are kind of at a halt now unfortunately so that crop is going to overwinter. Thankfully, we don't see a lot of degrading issues, so if the conditions are are nice in the spring hopefully producers can get that off without any further risk."

 

Cornelsen commented on the quality of this year's crop.

 

"A lot of our canola came off fairly decent. There was a little bit of issues with green seed in areas but producers have been able to go in there and got the dryers going and trying to store it properly. That will be the biggest issue because we do have some variability in moisture and having a little bit of high moisture content in some of those crops coming off. Monitoring bins this winter is going to be extremely important, especially with the fluctuating we've had...There's going to be a lot of change in temperature happening within that bin."

Video: Finding a Balance of Innovation and Regulation - Dr. Peter Facchini

Regulations help markets and industry exist on level playing fields, keeping consumers safe and innovation from going too far. However, incredibly strict regulations can stunt innovation and cause entire industries to wither away. Dr. Peter James Facchini brings his perspective on how existing regulations have slowed the advancement of medical developments within Canada. Given the international concern of opium poppy’s illicit potential, Health Canada must abide by this global policy. But with modern technology pushing the development of many pharmaceuticals to being grown via fermentation, is it time to reconsider the rules?

Dr. Peter James Facchini leads research into the metabolic biochemistry in opium poppy at the University of Calgary. For more than 30 years, his work has contributed to the increased availability of benzylisoquinoline alkaloid biosynthetic genes to assist in the creation of morphine for pharmaceutical use. Dr. Facchini completed his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the University of Toronto before completing Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biochemistry at the University of Kentucky in 1992 & Université de Montréal in 1995.