Canada’s canola crop is already known for the bright yellow hue its flowers lend to the prairie landscape every summer.
Before too many years have passed, the plant’s oil-laden and meal-rich black seed could match that golden colour.
Agriculture Canada scientists said last week that after decades of effort, they have finally developed a genetically stable line of yellow-seeded canola.
“This is an important day for the future of the canola industry,” said Keith Downey, a retired Agriculture Canada plant breeder who was closely involved in the creation of canola more than 30 years ago.
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Yellow-seeded canola has higher oil content and lower fibre content than black-seeded, making it a higher value product.
The announcement was made during a one-day conference that attracted more than 150 canola industry officials, including public and private researchers, agronomists and marketers.
The Agriculture Canada scientists emphasized that while the development of the genetically stable yellow-seeded line is a major development, it’s just the first step in a long and challenging process.
They called on the rest of the canola industry, including private plant breeders, to join in a concerted effort to turn all of Canada’s canola seed from black to yellow within the next 10-20 years.
“If Canada wants to continue to be a leader in quality and development of the canola crop, then I think what we all want to have in our sights is that being a yellow-seeded crop,” said Downey.
“That’s what we have been looking towards for many years and we thought we would achieve it much faster than we have.”
Yellow-seeded canola has a thinner seed coat than its black-seeded cousin. The lower fibre content increases its digestibility and value as animal feed, while the higher oil content increases the financial returns for vegetable oil processors.
The yellow-seeded brassica napus line unveiled last week also has five percent greater yield than the black-seeded check varieties against which it was measured.
How long it takes to achieve the goal of a yellow-seeded crop will depend on how fast the rest of the industry picks up the ball and runs with it, said Downey. And he said it will be crucial that all researchers, public and private, get on board and work toward the same goal.
Garth Hodges, global canola business manager for Bayer CropScience, said the Ag Canada announcement was “exciting news” and there will undoubtedly be interest from private research companies.
But he added that the goal is to improve the quality of canola to keep it ahead of competitors like palm, sunflower and soybean, not to change seed colour.
“This (yellow seed) is one way to achieve two very desirable characteristics,” he said. “But some companies are pursuing those goals using different techniques.”
The new line has been developed through conventional open-pollinated breeding methods, rather than genetic modification, and the researchers who developed it want to keep it that way for the next five to 10 years.
“I would like at the beginning to keep it free of transgenes,” said Gerhard Rakow, head of crop breeding at the federal department’s Saskatoon research centre, who headed up the research team.
Plant breeders can use that time to work on such things as yield, oil and protein content and disease resistance.
Once a solid variety has been developed, it can be taken to the market to see what customers want in terms of going the GM route or not.
