It may not look like spring outside in parts of Western Canada but seeding time is nearby and the Flax Council of Canada has a message for growers.
“We want to ensure that producers remain as diligent as they have been in the past with getting their planting seed tested,” said council president William Hill.
Thanks to the collective effort of growers and grain handlers, the flax industry has made strides in ridding the system of Triffid, an unapproved GM variety that has disrupted trade with Europe.
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Seven percent of the production samples submitted for testing in the 2010-11 crop year have tested positive for Triffid. That’s down from 10 percent the previous crop year.
Two percent of pedigreed seed and six percent of farm saved seed samples have tested positive, which is down from seven and 14 percent respectively last year.
“Everybody in the industry is doing a remarkable job to try to deal with the problem,” said Hill.
He hopes farmers will maintain that momentum by continuing to test their seed prior to planting it and replacing seed that tests positive for Triffid with pedigreed seed that has tested negative.
Statistics Canada predicts 1.57 million acres of flax will go in the ground this spring, which would be 70 percent more than was planted in 2010, the year following the discovery of the Triffid contamination.
Hill doesn’t believe a return to 2009 seeding levels will increase the amount of Triffid in the system as long as producers remain diligent about testing.
As of Jan. 1, 2011, the 10 labs approved to conduct Triffid tests are providing growers with a 50 percent discount off their regular testing costs up to a maximum of $100 per sample. The council is reimbursing the labs with money it received from the federal government.
In order for their flax to be sold to the European Union, growers need to show buyers a certificate showing their seed tested negative in the spring and another one demonstrating their production tested negative in the fall.
Many buyers will accept test results only from two or three labs, so growers need to pay attention to which labs are on the approved list of the buyer they are dealing with.
Hill said the labs have indicated that the harvest and seed samples that tested positive have extremely low levels of contamination.
“They’re pretty confident if we were at a 0.1 level of detection instead of the 0.01 level we wouldn’t be showing any Triffid at all,” he said.
The Europeans insist on keeping the tolerance level at 0.01 percent so Triffid contamination will likely remain an access issue for years.
Hill had no up-to-date information on the amount of rail cars and bins being rejected at port position for contamination but he suspects it’s slightly lower from where it was a year ago and way down from when the Triffid controversy first erupted.
