UPDATE: This story has been changed from the original version – 10:37 Central, Jan. 27, 2023.
Corteva Agriscience has finally attained the global regulatory approvals it needs to commercialize its new herbicide tolerant canola.
The company’s Optimum GLY trait has languished in China’s regulatory system for more than a decade.
Jeff Loessin, Canadian seed marketing leader for Corteva, said China’s approval paves the way for commercialization of the product in Canada, the United States and Australia.
It was the final global approval required for the product. The European Union approved the herbicide tolerant canola trait on March 31, 2022.
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Canadian approval happened in 2012 by comparison, so it has been a long process.
The next step is for the company to go through its internal commercialization process, which involves getting a stewardship program in place, creating product-use guides and notifying various players in the grain sector.
Loessin said the plan is for a limited commercial release to seed growers and commercial farmers in 2023 in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.
The technology is expected to become more broadly available the following year.
“We’re going to supply significant volumes for 2024 planting,” he said.
It will be the second new novel herbicide tolerant trait to hit the canola market since Roundup Ready canola. Bayer released its TruFlex trait in 2019.
The Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission declined to comment on Corteva’s new trait.
Optimum GLY canola provides growers with enhanced broad spectrum weed control, a broader window of glyphosate application, and allows them to apply higher rates of the popular herbicide.
The trait also provides better protection for the crop.
“It virtually eliminates any kind of risk of crop injury that you would come across,” said Loessin.
While the company would have liked to commercialize the crop a decade ago, the huge delay has created opportunities for refinement.
“What it has allowed us to do is get the trait into some really good hybrids,” he said.
The high-yielding hybrids contain new sources of clubroot resistance, a decent pod shatter package and one product offers sclerotinia resistance.
Optimum GLY will become the new form of glyphosate resistance in Corteva’s Pioneer and Brevant seed brands.
The company also has licensing agreements with a couple of other seed companies. It will be up to them how prevalent the trait becomes in their lines.
Loessin anticipates the trait will eventually comprise a “significant portion” of glyphosate tolerant canola acres in Western Canada.
