A breeder with DuPont Pioneer says modern hybrids actually preserved yields in Western Canada this year.
The claim comes in the wake of criticisms from growers about the hardiness of canola varieties.
In late August, Manitoba Canola Growers Association president Ed Rempel said the crop industry needs to develop robust canola varieties that can withstand heat, drought and disease.
For too long, breeders have focused on yield gains and that obsession has produced varieties that are yield “prima donnas,” Rempel said.
Dave Charne, research director of crop product development for DuPont Pioneer, said he understands growers’ frustration, but he said modern varieties are much hardier than previous generations.
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“Hybrids have really changed the stress tolerance of canola as a crop. The crop today is very different from what it was 15 to 20 years ago,” Charne told a mid-September tour of DuPont Pioneer’s research centre in Carman, Man.
Canola producers who were expecting yields of 50 bushels per acre this year have instead reported yields of 25 bu. per acre or less.
Grower frustration with yields isn’t surprising, but that doesn’t mean varieties are responsible, Charne said.
“As the stakes go up, the expectations go up,” he said. “Growers are putting more into the crop today and they’re expecting to get more out.”
Unfortunately, extreme heat during bloom, sclerotinia, aster yellows, blackleg, lygus bugs and bertha armyworms put a cap on yield potential this year, Charne said.
“If you get three or four of those things impacting you at once, and you get 20 bu. when your five year average has been 40, you’re not happy,” he said.
“Overall, I don’t see canola as being a fussy crop or a high management crop…. Let’s look back 15, 20 years at canola. (It) once was a very fussy crop…. In the pre-herbicide tolerance days, weed control really limited what you could do with canola in the rotation and how much you could grow.”
However, he said canola performs best under certain conditions. When growers “push the envelope on those conditions,” it can be a risky crop to produce.
Charne said producers are tightening rotations and growing the oilseed on regions of the Prairies that aren’t ideally suited for canola production.
