InVigor canola seed | Field trials show significant yield gains
Pod shattering, a major issue many farmers face with current canola varieties, could be dramatically reduced as new lines approach field readiness.
Bayer CropScience Canada is set to launch InVigor L140P, the first in what is expected to be a long line of pod shatter tolerant canola varieties from a variety of companies.
“It’s certainly a welcome trait,” said Rick White, general manager of the Canadian Canola Growers Association.
“It has been something that farmers have been asking for, for quite a while, and it’s great to hear that there will be some new products coming.”
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He said the trait should allow growers to harvest more bushels.
A technical sheet promoting the new variety states Canadian canola growers lost an average of two to four bushels per acre to pod shattering between 2010 and 2012, according to Agriculture Canada field surveys.
Bayer said that works out to a loss of more than $500 million last year. Some grain industry analysts think the loss was closer to $1 billion that year because of a September windstorm that tossed canola swaths around across the Prairies.
Blaine Woycheshin, oilseed crops manager for InVigor Seed, said the company’s new pod shatter reduction trait, which was created through a patented but undisclosed non-genetically modified technology, should reduce but not completely eliminate shatter losses.
“It’s not bulletproof because if it was bulletproof you’d never get (seeds) out of the pod,” he said.
The trait proved its worth in 2012 trials, which had an extremely windy harvest period. The L140P yields were slightly lower than 5440 at normal swathing time and identical during the seven-day delayed swathing trials. However, it provided a 12 percent yield advantage in the straight cutting trials.
In this year’s trials, straight cutting L140P yielded seven percent, or about four bushels per acre, more than L140P and 5440 that was swathed at the normal time.
Bayer is being careful not to position the new product as a sure way to avoid swathing.
“That would be wrong,” said Woycheshin.
“The bottom line is this is buying growers flexibility in making their harvest management decisions.”
Bayer claims its pod shattering reduction trait could allow growers to delay swathing by a week to 10 days or even more, allowing pods to fill for a longer period and resulting in larger seeds, a fuller pod and the potential for lower green seed counts. It will be available in limited quantities in 2014.
White said that would be a “tremendous benefit” to farmers.
“When canola is ready to swath, it’s ready to swath now and it only gets worse as every day goes by,” he said.
“All it takes is a rain shower or two to hold the farmer up and next thing you know you’re way behind in your swathing and you’re taking big losses because it’s shelling out.”
DuPont Pioneer is also working on pod shatter tolerance, but the planned 2014 introduction of its trait has been pushed back a year be-cause of unco-operative weather.
Most farmers swath at 60 percent seed colour change, but DuPont’s new product allows growers to swath at 80 percent colour change and beyond. As well, it will be more amenable to straight cutting than varieties now on the market.
Falak stressed that delayed swathing is the primary goal because a lot of things have to fall into place for straight cutting to occur, such as uniform maturity, which is difficult to achieve.
He expects the pod shatter tolerance trait to eventually be incorporated into all of Pioneer’s canola varieties, much like blackleg resistance is today.
“Down the road it will be a platform trait,” he said.
Pod shatter damage from wind or hail can be severe. Winds in excess of 80 km-h can result in a 50 percent reduction in yield, while a hailstorm might wipe out 80 percent of a crop.
“I’m not saying that shatter tolerance would eliminate losses, but it would very significantly reduce them relative to regular genetics,” said Falak.
He estimated that 90 to 95 percent of canola is swathed before being combined.
“This is really the beginning of a rather new era that will enable that straight combining portion of the market to grow slowly but steadily.”
White said the savings from shifting to a one-pass harvest system would be substantial.
Even the ability to delay swathing would be significant because it would allow farmers to plant canola earlier in the season rather than staging the crop so that it doesn’t ripen all at once.
Other seed companies are also working on the trait.
Sam Eathington, vice-president of plant breeding with Monsanto, said it is one of three canola breeding priorities for the company along with additional herbicide options and blackleg resistance.
He added Monsanto is looking at later this decade for release of pod shatter tolerant traits.
