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By Alice McFarlane

Plant Growth Regulators

Researcher believes plant growth regulators are worth a try

Mar 3, 2023 | 4:11 PM

MELFORT, Sask. – Research being conducted on plant growth regulators (PGR) show the product can help a cereal crop but there are no guarantees.

There has been increased use of these products on the prairies, according to Dr. Breanne Tidemann, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based in Lacombe, Alta.

Tidemann said PGRs are chemicals that are applied to plants that change how they grow. In western Canadian agriculture, it is typically used to shorten the plants and then reduce their chance of lodging in field crops.

“Wheat and barley in particular are the two that we’re using them on, and the goal is to be able to up nitrogen rates and still get some increased yield, but not get the increased height with the plants falling every which way that we sometimes see when we do that,” Tidemann said.

Several PGRs have been registered for use. Tidemann said PGRs are most often used on wheat but there has been more adoption in the malt barley industry as well which is the basis of her research.

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“We looked at three different PGRs, ethephon, chlormequat, and trinexapac. We use active ingredient names, we don’t use brand names, to look at how they would affect lodging in CDC Copeland malt barley,” she said.

Tidemann said researchers did everything they could to try and encourage lodging.

“We upped nitrogen rates, and we upped seeding rates and we still had site years that didn’t lodge, of course, because that’s how research goes,” she added.

Tidemann said the impacts on yield, lodging, kernel weights and plump. Samples were sent the Canadian Grain Commission to look at the actual malting quality of those samples.

There was a lot of variability in the results.

“It’s not the level of consistency we would have liked so there were site years where we would see reductions in lodging from the PGR applications,” she said. “But there was also the odd year where we saw increases in lodging from PGR applications.”

Tidemann said, for the most part, there were benefits in terms of reduced height and reduced lodging with ethephon and trinexapac. Ethephon also tended to have some increases in days to maturity or increased tillering. There were some negative quality impacts as well.

“From our study the most consistent and the one with the least negative impacts would have been trinexapac, but it still wasn’t a guarantee that if you sprayed it, it wouldn’t lodge,” she said.

Tidemann said her recommendation from the research is PGRs are worth a try.

“There could be some varietal sensitivity where the variety we chose wasn’t super sensitive to PGR,’ she said. “But if you’re going to start looking at it on your farm, make sure you’re including a check strip to see if you’re getting the benefit you’re desiring out of that application and the money you’re spending on it.”

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW