Grain Millers and Paterson Grain, which operate oat mills in Yorkton and Winnipeg, say chlormequat has limited agronomic value and might disrupt demand for Canadian oats.

Some farmers in Western Canada use chlormequat, sold under the brand Manipulator, to reduce the height of oat plants and minimize the risk of lodging.

On Feb. 28, Grain Millers sent an email to its oat suppliers, including farmers, asking them to think twice before using Manipulator this year.

“We have seen no agronomic value in the use of Manipulator on oats…. In some cases, it has even been shown to reduce grain yield and quality as well as potentially lengthening maturity,” Grain Millers said.

Lorne Boundy, a merchandiser with Paterson Grain and a farmer in Manitoba, shared a similar message in an interview with The Western Producer.

“It’s efficacy on oats is hit and miss,” Boundy said.

“It works very well on wheat. It works decently on barley. It’s mediocre on oats, at best…. It doesn’t do a lot (for oats).”

A spokesperson for Belchim Crop Protection Canada, which markets and distributes Manipulator, said its efficacy does vary, depending on variety.

“Yes, it is true that there are differences in oat varietal responses to chlormequat. Overall, the product provides a positive benefit when used on oats in terms of helping to maximize yield, preserving quality and improving harvest efficiency,” said Cade Morse.

“Our experience shows that growers use products that provide them with a good return on investment.”

The discussion around the efficacy of Manipulator is connected to a U.S. report on chlormequat, released in mid-February.

An American non-profit, the Environmental Working Group, studied the presence of chlormequat in urine and oat food.

EWG scientists found traces of chlormequat in 77 out of 96 urine samples, or 80 percent of cases.

The urine came from adults in Florida, South Carolina and Missouri.

The high rate of positive tests should raise “alarm bells,” the EWG said, because the “chemical is linked to reproductive and developmental problems in animal studies, suggesting the potential for similar harm to humans.”

The EWG also tested oat-based food that was purchased in May 2023 and the summer of 2022. The researchers tested 25 samples of food made from conventional oats and detected traces of chlormequat 23 times. or 92 percent of samples.

“These findings and chlormequat toxicity data raise concerns about current exposure levels and warrant more expansive toxicity testing, food monitoring and epidemiological studies to assess health effects of chlormequat exposures in humans,” say the authors of the EWG study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology

In its report, the EWG says the source of the chlormequat is likely Canadian farms because American growers aren’t allowed to apply the plant growth regulator to cereal crops.

How much chlormequat?

The amount detected in oat foodswas well below the maximum residue level (MRL) for chlormequat.

In conventional oat food purchased in 2022 and 2023, the EWG found:

• A median amount of 114 parts per billion in 2023 and 90 p.p.b .in 2022.
• So, 104 ppb for the 25 samples of oat foods
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has an MRL for chlormequat in oat grains of 40 parts per million and 10 p.p.m. for oat bran.

Put another way, the amount found in oats was 104 p.p.b. and the maximum allowable amount is 40,000 p.p.b. The MRL is 384 times more than the amount detected in oats.

“In my opinion, and POGA’s opinion, is that this is a good news story, if anything,” said Brad Boettger, chair of the Prairie Oat Growers Association and a farmer in Alberta, east of Edmonton.

“The fact that we’re 350 times lower than the maximum allowable, I would characterize it as kind of making a story where there isn’t one.”

Boundy used more direct language.

He described the EWG report as “crap.” However, he acknowledged that public perception of chlormequat in oats “could become an issue.”

The data and evidence may be on the side of Canadian growers, but major media outlets in the United States picked up the EWG study, including CBS News, Forbes, People magazine and USA Today.

“Chemical That May Cause Infertility Found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats … 80% of Americans tested were found to have been exposed to chlormequat,” said an alarming headline from people.com.

If consumers think oats are unsafe because of a Facebook post or something they saw on Instagram, it creates a massive risk for the oat industry.

That’s why Canadian oat growers are being asked, politely, to avoid using Manipulator.

“Grain Millers, Inc. has not prohibited the use of Manipulator on contracted oats but does discourage its use based on the data, the risk of future trade barriers and developing consumer concerns related to this product,” says its email to growers. “It is recommended that growers use careful consideration before using this product.”

Paterson Grain is also taking a subtle approach.

Boundy is encouraging growers to use other tactics to prevent lodging instead of applying chlormequat.

“You shouldn’t be starting your planning … with ‘yes, I’m going to use it (Manipulator),’ ” he said.

“Start with your variety. Pick a good, standing variety, tailor your fertility program to help it stand and go from there.”

—Robert Arnason writes for the Western Producer from Manitoba.

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Excessively wet conditions in the region this month have already slowed fieldwork and hurt spring wheat quality on both sides of the border.

Snow is expected to fall from Saturday night through Monday, dumping 10 to 30 cm broadly across southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. A few areas close to the U.S. border are likely to receive 18 inches through Monday, said Nick Vita, a meteorologist with the Commodity Weather Group.

“We’re thinking about 10 to 15 per cent of the Canadian spring wheat and canola is at risk to see five to 10 per cent losses due to lodging from the snow,” said Vita.

Lodging occurs when plants get knocked over, making them difficult to harvest.

Montana’s spring wheat harvest was 80 per cent complete by Sunday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, limiting the amount of crops still vulnerable to the weather there.

The harvest is less advanced in Canada. Farmers had gathered 31 per cent of Saskatchewan’s spring wheat and 17 per cent of its canola as of Monday, the province said in a weekly report. Harvest progress for all crops in the province totaled 39 per cent, well behind the five-year average pace of 62 per cent.

“We are expecting drier weather to return no later than the middle of next week,” Vita said. “So the snow should melt … But harvest will be slow to recover,” he said.

— Julie Ingwersen is a commodities correspondent for Reuters in Chicago.

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“What we really need to do is find a solution for standability, and plant growth regulators may be one of those agronomic tools that we can use to help improve standability,” provincial research scientist Sheri Strydhorst said at CanolaPALOOZA in late June.

“But what we’re finding is that the plant growth regulators don’t work on all cultivars. We might have something like CDC Go or Harvest wheat where the plant growth regulator works really, really well. You put it on Foremost or Thorsby or Coleman wheat and it doesn’t achieve you anything.”

That uncertainty makes it tough for producers to decide whether plant growth regulators — which reduce the height of a plant to limit the potential for lodging — are worth the risk, said Strydhorst. Luckily, trade issues around plant growth regulators are “managing the risk.”

“Manipulator does not have a maximum residue limit into the United States. Growers are hesitant to use it at all because if they can’t sell their wheat, they’re not going to use it,” she said.

“The good thing for us researchers is that gives us time to do some of that work.”

Right now, Alberta researchers are looking at which cultivars respond to plant growth regulators, and which don’t.

“We want to make sure that growers using a plant growth regulator get the results that they’re looking for,” said Strydhorst.

In addition to wheat and oat cultivars, Strydhorst’s team is also looking at barley cultivars.

“Lodging in barley is a huge, huge issue. Manipulator is registered right now for use on wheat, and we’ve tried it on barley, which it’s not registered for. It doesn’t improve the standability,” she said.

“But new actives like trinexapac-ethyl that are in the process of registration are working much, much better. When that is registered, barley growers will have an option there, which would be really great for improving standability.”

The study started earlier this summer, so preliminary results on which cultivars respond to the plant growth regulators should be available this fall.

“Sometimes what we see is a plant growth regulator can look good two weeks after you’ve sprayed it, but by the end of the growing season, that plant might actually be taller,” said Strydhorst. “So we need to really wait until harvest to get that definitive answer.”

In the meantime, producers should make sure they “do their homework.”

“Talk to people who have been working with them or even your neighbours who have found something that’s worked,” said Strydhorst.

“With plant growth regulators, the staging is very, very critical to get them to work. If you have heat stress, drought stress, or waterlogging problems, we have seen yield reductions of up to 10 per cent. They’re picky.

“It’s not entry-level agronomy, and you’ve got to be watching your staging. It’s all about being careful.”

The post Plant growth regulators are picky about staging — and varieties appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Lloydminster, Estevan and Carrot River were just a few of the communities hit hardest by the precipitation.

In some cases, areas in eastern and southern regions received over 100 millimetres of rain in just a few hours. Crops in those area have suffered lodging, wind and hail damage or been placed under standing water.

Leaf spot and root rot are already issues and the water is also raising the potential for disease pressures, according to one official.

Topsoil moisture is rated as 33 per cent surplus, 66 per cent adequate and one per cent short. Hay land and pasture topsoil moisture is rated as 18 per cent surplus, 81 per cent adequate and two per cent short.

Haying progress is at a standstill due to wet fields and high humidity. Saskatchewan livestock producers now have 19 per cent of the hay crop cut and 20 per cent baled or put into silage. Hay quality is rated as nine per cent excellent, 70 per cent good, 18 per cent fair and three per cent poor.

According to the report, 51 per cent of fall cereals, 69 per cent of oilseeds and 70 per cent of spring cereals and pulses are at normal developmental stages for this time of year.

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada in Winnipeg.

The post Soggy conditions stress Saskatchewan’s crops appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Sure — if the conditions are right. If not, you’re wasting your money.

“Plant growth regulators aren’t to be used on every acre, like a herbicide or nitrogen fertilizer,” said Sheri Strydhorst, a research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.

“Producers need to look at it as an insurance tool. If you don’t get lodging conditions, you’re not going to see the benefits of it.”

Plant growth regulators are designed to prevent lodging, which can slash yields between seven and 35 per cent, depending on when in the growing season it hits. Because of that, it’s “really difficult to quantify the return on investment” of using a plant growth regulator, said Strydhorst.

“If you don’t get lodging, you don’t see necessarily a yield benefit,” she said. “But if you do have a year where there’s bad lodging and you’re able to put on the plant growth regulator and keep the crop standing, there’s a big economic benefit to being able to straight cut that crop.”

Lodging is usually caused by environmental conditions, so producers need to use their better judgment to decide if they’re at risk.

“Producers who are really pushing their inputs and have high moisture conditions are the ones who should be considering using a plant growth regulator,” said Strydhorst.

“If you’re in southern Alberta under irrigation with high nitrogen or high manure, and your typical CPS wheat yield is 100 bushels per acre, that’s where you really should be pencilling this into your production practice, just because the risk is there of lodging.”

Dryland farmers — especially in areas at risk of drought — likely won’t see a good return from using plant growth regulators, she said.

“If your typical wheat yield is 40 bushels an acre, that is not the growing area where plant growth regulators are intended.”

Choose wisely

But even in the right conditions for lodging, plant growth regulators are “not simple and straightforward,” said Strydhorst, who has seen mixed results when studying plant growth regulators — like Engage Agro’s Manipulator — on wheat and barley.

In some cases, yields have gone up, but they’re just as likely to drop, she said. And sometimes, it all depends on which variety is being used.

“Right now, Manipulator is registered on spring wheat, but what we’re finding is that it doesn’t work the same on all spring wheat varieties,” she said. “The company has said that it works really well on hard reds and not so well on CPS (Canada Prairie Spring). As a general statement, that might be true, but there are exceptions to those rules.”

In some general-purpose wheat varieties, plant growth regulators have caused “amazing height reductions,” but that’s not the case for all varieties.

“Harvest is a hard red variety that’s very commonly grown that’s very responsive, but something like CDC Go — another hard red variety — is not showing very substantial height reduction. We’ve even seen height increases with it,” she said.

“There’s lots of exceptions to the rules, which make it challenging.”

So far, AC Harvest, CDC Stanley, AC Stettler, and Coleman seem to be “very responsive” to plant growth regulators.

“You want to make sure you’re using a variety that does respond,” said Strydhorst.

Producers also need to get their staging right — and some plant growth regulators are pickier than others.

“If you get the staging wrong with some plant growth regulators, you can cause yield decreases, while some just might not work as effectively at reducing lodging,” said Strydhorst.

“Growers really need to be cautious and follow the label recommendations.”

For a product like Bayer CropScience’s Ethrel, producers shouldn’t apply it if they miss the staging window.

“That window is tiny, and if you miss it, you can cause yield decreases.”

Products like Manipulator have a larger window, but producers still need to target growth stage 30 to 32 — when the first and second nodes become visible — for it to be most effective.

“This is not staging where you drive by in the truck,” she said. “It’s not even staging where you walk through the field. You need to be pulling plants and dissecting them and looking at where nodes are moving.

“You might have two or three days to get your plant growth regulators, but you can’t miss those windows.”

The post Plant growth regulators aren’t for everyone, says researcher appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.