After combining and before winter, there are a few tasks canola growers should think about tackling.

There is time to reassess plants stands, fertilizer rates and disease levels.

"You can see how many plants you took to harvest and see whether it was close to what you aimed for," says Agronomy Specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, Dan Orchard.

He says the optimum plant stand is a consistent 7 to 14 plants per square foot and anything below 5 plants is not reaching its yield potential.

Orchard says soil samples is also something to think about and says many growers will wait for the soil to cool down to take samples because it's a better representative of what will be there in the spring.

"It's good to look over everything through the winter and make plans, go out and go do your soil sampling and start prepping for next spring," he says.

A few nice weeks in fall is also an opportunity to control those post harvest weeds and distribute residue in fields planned for canola next year.

To help you out next spring, Orchard suggests spreading residue evenly across the field as it is critical for accurate and consistent seed placement next spring.

"If you didn't have an ideal yield, sometimes that can be attributed to poor trash management," he says  

So if the combine didn’t do a good job, harrowing dry straw is an option.  

"Make sure that you are not doing more damage than you are good. If you're ripping out even more stubble and it's more aggressive, that's not a good thing and you could end up dealing with even more trash in the spring," he adds.  

Finally, it's always a good idea to get out and scout for clubroot and blackleg.

Orchard says you might not find much at this point, but it's still a good idea to always be looking out for disease.