New research | Canaryseed reacts differently to temperature changes than wheat, oats
Preliminary research on canaryseed plant development indicates what researchers have long suspected: it responds differently to its environment than other cereal crops.
“We want to understand how canaryseed grows because there is no benchmark data, period, anywhere,” said University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre breeder Pierre Hucl.
He has suspected for some time that canaryseed responds to spring temperature, daylight hours and seeding date differently than wheat and oats.
“The preliminary results do indicate that canaryseed does respond differently, particularly to seeding date,” said Hucl.
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Yield trials in Saskatoon in 2010 found a significant difference between seeding canaryseed during the first and last weeks of May.
Average yields dropped 40 percent for the later seeded material compared to 18 percent for spring wheat.
“In essence, over that 20-day period, roughly speaking, you’re losing two percent per day by delaying the seeding date,” said Hucl.
“The plant probably wants to stay more vegetative than it should.”
Growers tend to delay seeding canaryseed because it can tolerate more abuse at harvest time than most competing crops and still retain the grain.
However, the early results on the phenology research suggest that may not be a good strategy.
A new line of glabrous, or hairless, canaryseed was registered this past November. CDC Calvi is a brown-seeded variety that yields 28 percent higher than CDC Maria, the first line of hairless canola released in 2001.
It is about 10 to 15 percent higher yielding that CDC Bastia and CDC Togo, two of the better hairless lines in the marketplace.
It averaged 850 kilograms per acre over five sites in registration trials last year.
Two other potential future varieties are C05041, a yellow-seeded hairless line, and C10022, a brown-seeded hairless line.
Hucl told producers attending the canaryseed portion of Crop Development Week that breeder seed of C05041 was produced in 2009, but the variety has been shelved until North American approval is granted for human consumption of canaryseed. The variety yields 22 percent higher than CDC Maria.
The third year of testing has been completed for C10022, and that variety is yielding 44 percent more than CDC Maria.
“In order to achieve that yield, we’re letting maturity drift back a bit,” said Hucl.
The average maturity was 93.8 days, which is nearly four days more than CDC Maria.
