Dale Burns is crossing his fingers for sclerotinia.
The plant breeder with Zeneca Seeds has been looking for the disease for the past couple of years to test a new type of canola.
But of course, when he wanted to see sclerotinia, he saw very little.
Last week, Burns got the go-ahead to do three years of extensive field trials using apetalous canola through an interim registration from the canola and rapeseed recommending committee.
Burns said some people estimate a canola that resists sclerotinia could be worth $100 million per year to farmers in yield gain. He was careful not to make any claims about the performance of the new canola, which does not have the conventional yellow petals.
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Burns said he needs to collect more data about how the new canola, to be marketed as HyLite, performs under severe sclerotinia conditions, something he could not find last year.
“We did not see much sclerotinia, period.”
Apetalous canola comes from a natural mutation of the plant. At peak flowering, HyLite looks almost green in comparison to conventional varieties.
Without petals, the plant may be less susceptible to sclerotinia, spores that feed on the fallen petals of canola.
“We just do not have the hard facts on that,” he said.
The Zeneca variety met all requirements for registration set out by the recommending committee.
So far, its weakness seems to be “quite reasonable” but not exceptional yields.
Committee members voted to accept the cultivar for a three-year interim registration anyway.
