Published 1:22 pm Friday, May 30, 2025
University of Idaho Extension and the Pacific Northwest Canola Association plan a research tour starting at 7:30 a.m. June 11 at Craigmont American Legion Hall, 31 E. Lorahama St., Craigmont.
Tour presenters will highlight canola research, cultivars under development, and best management practices. The tour will start with a sponsored breakfast.
“While many farmers are adding canola into their crop rotations, it’s a relatively new crop that requires very specific management practices,” UI Lewis County extension educator Klae O’Brien said in a news release. “With common stakeholders and program outcomes, UI Extension and PNWCA saw an opportunity to work together and provide one immersive educational experience for canola farmers and other interested individuals.”
She and association executive director Karen Sowers organized the first Prairie Area Winter Canola Tour in May 2024 with help from other members of the association. That tour drew 58 participants representing a combined 34,000 canola acres in the Northwest. Stops included a UI winter canola variety trial and an industry-sponsored winter canola variety trial.
O’Brien and Sowers hope to build upon their success with this year’s free tour, on which participants will visit canola fields in full bloom, according to the release.
“This collaboration is huge,” Sowers said. “It’s a way to reach a lot more people.”
On the upcoming tour, commodity market updates and discussions about canola quality factors and insurance issues are slated following breakfast.
Participants then will take a bus tour that stops first at Clearwater Farms near Craigmont, where the university has a pair of canola trials underway in partnership with the farm. UI brassica breeder Kamal Khadka will showcase his winter canola variety trials and present 2024 data. Kurtis Schroeder, a UI extension cropping systems agronomy specialist, will discuss his canola fungicide trials.
At tour stop 1890 Ag in Cottonwood, participants will see a private canola trial involving varieties from Kentucky-based Rubisco Seeds, according to the release. Officials from Terraplex Northwest will demonstrate the use of drones for spraying crops and taking aerial imagery.
Washington State University entomologist David Crowder and one of his graduate students will discuss pest control, and Infinity Agriculture representatives will demonstrate how to sweep a field for both beneficial bugs and insect pests.
For many Idaho farms, canola provides an important option to deviate from a wheat-fallow crop rotation, thereby breaking disease cycles and enabling producers to alternate pesticide chemistries, according to UI.
“Different research has clearly proven that having canola in a crop rotation is going to help with better soil health and better sustainability, and also some studies show it increases the yield of the following crops,” Khadka said.
Idaho in 2024 ranked fifth nationally in canola production with 93,652 acres, up 6% from 2023, according to the university. Acreage in 2023 increased by 43% from a year earlier.
Most production occurs in Latah, Nez Perce and Lewis counties in the state’s north-central region. But southeast Idaho — where canola is raised at the highest elevations in the U.S., both under irrigation and on dry land — is a burgeoning production area.
The Northwest is the sole U.S. region that produces both winter and spring canola.
Most of the region’s canola crop is crushed for culinary oil at a facility in Warden, Wash., and the byproduct is hotly demanded as a high-value cattle feed additive, according to UI.
Tour sponsors include UI Extension, PNWCA, the Idaho Oilseed Commission, Bell Equipment, Rubisco Seeds, Columbia Grain, HUB International, Infinity, Agri-Service, Northpine Ag Equipment and Precision Bio.
Information and registration: UI Lewis County Extension at 208-937-2311, or online at https://uidaho.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bPo0HzNQtVYovki.
Research trial detail: https://www.uidaho.edu/news/news-articles/colleges/cals/2025/052825-canola-tour#:~:text=May%2028%2C%202025,the%20state’s%20important%20canola%20industry.
