Canola yield and quality under tile drainage in the Canadian Prairies

Canadian Biosystems Engineering

article

Douglas Cattani¹  Emeka Ndulue²  Ramanathan Sri Ranjan² 

[1] Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba;Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba

关键词: Subsurface drainage;    water management;    canola;    SouthernManitoba;   

DOI  :  10.7451/CBE.2022.64.1.29

学科分类：农业科学（综合）

来源: Canadian Society of Agricultural Engineering

【 摘 要 】

For areas with seasonally shallow water tables and poorlydrained soils, subsurface drainage systems are ideal forremoving excess water from the root zone and improvingsoil workability, trafficability, and timeliness of fieldoperations. With increased interest in tile drainage insouthern Manitoba, the objective of this study was toevaluate the impacts of drainage on canola yield and canolaoil qualities over three growing seasons (2019-2021) inWinkler, Manitoba. The study was carried out on replicatedfield plots with three different drainage treatments:controlled drainage (CD), free drainage (FD), and nodrainage (ND). Subsurface drain tiles were installed at adepth of 0.9 m. The drains were spaced at 8 m for CD and15 m for FD. Compared to FD plots (3.02 Mg/ha), the CDplots (3.51 Mg/ha) had significantly higher yields in 2019with good rainfall. With low rainfall in 2020 and 2021, theimpact of drainage, especially CD, diminished, with nosignificant differences between the treatments. In 2020, theaverage yields were 3.12, 2.52, and 2.97 Mg/ha for ND, CD,and FD, respectively. Similarly, in 2021, there was nosignificant difference between CD (1.14 Mg/ha), FD (1.52Mg/ha), and ND (1.07 Mg/ha). The impact of CD underdrought conditions was not significant. This could berelated to the narrower drain spacing, which tends to removewater rapidly within the soil profile during short periods ofhigh-intensity rainfall. The canola quality assessments (oil,protein, glucosinolate and fatty acid profile) showed nosignificant differences between ND, CD, and FD in each ofthe years. This suggests that environmental variables(mainly temperature and precipitation) may have maskeddrainage impacts on canola quality.

【 授权许可】

CC BY