Objective
The objective of this project was to demonstrate the effects of low, medium and high seeding rates at early and late seeding dates on establishment and seed yield of two flax varieties.
Project Description
Field trials were conducted at Indian Head, Melfort and Yorkton in 2013-15 to demonstrate flax response to seeding rates with early and late planting dates. Early seeding sometimes reduced plant density and in other cases increased it. The overall effect of seeding date on plant density was relatively small. Late seeding did consistently reduce days from seeding to maturity, but the early seeded treatments still matured before the late seeded ones. Seeding date had a variable effect on yield, but on average, late seeding was slightly higher yielding. Variety had small and variable effects on plant density, days to maturity and yield. Effects on plant density and maturity likely were of minimal practical significance, but the small yield advantage of the northern adapted variety when averaged across trials is worth noting even though we did not test the statistical significance of this difference. As expected higher seeding rates resulted in increased plant density and slightly earlier maturity but had only a small effect on yield. Any observed benefits to rates beyond the typical 45-55 kg ha-1 were unlikely to justify the added seed cost.
