Objective
Overall objective of this project is to determine the target plant density, in plants/m2, for flax that provides the most agronomic and economic benefit to producers, especially for new flax varieties with improved agronomic traits.
The effects of varying seeding rates (target plant populations ranging from low to high) will be evaluated on agronomic traits of days to maturity, yield, and harvested seed quality of new varieties.
Economic analysis will be done to determine the impact of varying seeding rates on producers’ profit margin.
Project Description
This project is of relevance to local producers who already grow flax, as well as those who are on the fence and are hesitant to grow flax due to insufficient knowledge of production or costs associated with seeding. Focusing on the producer’s return on investment (ROI), the overarching goal of this project is to determine optimal target plant population needed to achieve high yield and quality of flaxseed. In other words, we seek to find the lowest seeding rate that the producer can get away with without significantly compromising yield and quality of harvested flaxseed – Because it is economically disadvantageous for producers to spend money on increased seeding rates if there is no improvement in yield and/or quality of harvested flaxseed. As such, results from this project will ultimately lead to reduced seed input costs for producers. Conducting this research on new varieties is especially important to producers as information is lacking on their yield potential under low seeding rates. Because new varieties have superior agronomic traits, their uptake will gradually increase, and thus, proactive research on them is pertinent and beneficial to producers. Finally, data generated from this project will help SaskOilseeds review and potentially update seeding rate recommendations for brown and yellow seeded flax varieties.
