Pioneer Hi-Bred has received Canadian regulatory approval for the first new glyphosate tolerance trait in canola since Roundup Ready was approved in 1994.
The company’s Optimum GLY canola is designed to provide growers with a broader window of glyphosate application and allow them to apply higher rates of the popular herbicide.
“It’s quite big news,” said Greg Stokke, western Canadian business director for Pioneer.
“There are very few traits to come to market like this because it’s very expensive.”
It can take 10 years and more than $100 million to get a new trait to market.
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Pioneer needs regulatory approval for the trait in all of the key export markets before it will commercialize the product in Canada. That is expected to happen by mid-decade.
Monsanto is seeking regulatory approval on a similar second-generation glyphosate tolerance trait that also allows growers to use higher rates over a broader window of application.
“We anticipate Canadian regulatory approval shortly,” said Monsanto Canada canola business lead Neil Arbuckle.
The company has made regulatory submissions in the United States, Mexico, Japan, South Korea and the European Union. It needs Canadian regulatory approval before making a submission to China.
“We are hopeful that we could commercialize in 2014. That’s an aggressive timeline and it requires all of our regulatory approvals to line up,” said Arbuckle.
Monsanto is waiting for approval before applying a trade name to the trait that is known internally as MON 88302.
Arbuckle said it is good news for Canadian growers that they will soon have two competing second generation glyphosate traits to choose from.
Pioneer will continue to test and characterize its trait in 2012 and will be making specific claims after that research is compiled and analyzed.
Stokke said Optimum GLY addresses one of the limitations of Roundup Ready canola.
If wind or rain delays spraying past the six-leaf stage of crop development there can be pod abortion causing up to a 50 percent loss in yield. A bigger application window will help producers avoid that problem.
Growers will also be able to apply glyphosate at higher rates to take care of hard-to-control weeds like narrow leaf hawksbeard or dandelions.
Pioneer’s Optimum GLY trait was packaged with an ALS inhibitor trait in the company’s Optimum GAT corn and soybeans.
But the ALS inhibitor wasn’t a desired trait for canola because it makes the crop resistant to the Group 2 herbicides used by growers during spring burnoff to kill canola volunteers.
Stokke said Pioneer is also introducing the Liberty Link trait into its germplasm. The commercialization timeline is expected to be similar to that of its Optimum GLY trait.
He said the company is committed to canola as evidenced by the new business office it is opening in Saskatoon in mid-September that will house about 20 Pioneer employees.
In addition to helping canola growers, the office staff will also teach farmers how to grow Pioneer’s corn and soybean crops, which are relatively new to the Canadian prairies.
Monsanto’s next big canola offering following the release of MON 88302 will likely be the Liberty Link and Roundup Ready stacked trait product it is developing in conjunction with Bayer CropScience that will be commercialized in both Bayer’s InVigor and Monsanto’s DeKalb germplasm.
