Tips for harvesting tough flax

Darald Marin from Saskatchewan emailed to ask if flax harvested now will respond the same as canola in a "tough" condition? "We haven't done any harvesting during October, but hopefully we can go this week at 12.5 or less," he says. "We will try to dry down in a batch recirculating dryer, but if we have too much over 10.0 per cent, some may have to overwinter."

Venkata Vakulabharanam is the oilseed specialist with Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. He reminds flax growers that they may have a hard time getting standing flax — especially tough flax — through the combine this time of year. "I highly recommend you swath the crop in the fall, even if you can't combine until spring." That will give green stalks time to soften up.

Venkata says that while farmers are more likely to leave flax to overwinter than leave canola, flax will continue to lose quality through the fall, winter and spring freeze-thaw cycles. The kernels get darker with each freeze-thaw, and the food market does not like these dark kernels. For the sake of preserving what quality you have left, you are "best to get it off" in the fall, he says.

For drying and storage of tough flax, Venkata provides this link to a North Dakota State University web page. 

If you have tips for combining, storing and drying tough flax, please email me. I'll share them with other readers.

Get your flax tested for Triffid

Discovery of a trace amount of the GM flax variety Triffid in a shipment to Europe has shut off the major market for Canadian flax. The Flax Council of Canada issued the following notice on its website October 30:

Message to Producers: The discovery of Triffid in the Canadian flax seed crop this past summer has been devastating to the Canadian industry as well as to our long time customers in the EU. If the Canadian flax industry is to survive and once again prosper, every conceivable effort must be made to locate and eradicate all sources of this contamination.

This will be the first of a series of messages to producers to assist them in working with the industry to solve this problem.

        The first step will be to ensure that you take and keep a representative sample of your flax crop as it goes into each storage bin. We recommend you follow grain company suggested sampling methods for both binning and binned grain. Also, the following link will provide you with information from the Canadian Grain Commission on taking a representative sample of flax:

http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/guides-guides/rs-er/trs-per-eng.htm.

In the next few days, we will be providing you with instructions as to how and where you can get your samples tested to determine whether or not it may be positive for Triffid. If you discover you have Triffid in your flax, please understand the industry is committed to assisting you in moving this seed into a market that will accept it without penalty.

The farm community and the trade need to work together to ensure once and for all that Triffid does not reappear in Canadian flax shipments.