Australia
February 28, 2013
Canola is a leading driver of farm profitability for South Stirling mixed grain and livestock producer Mal Thomson. In 2012 the oilseed made up half his cropping program and unlike some producers, Mal has hedged his bets by continuing to implement three different canola production systems.
On his farms there is a place for Roundup Ready® (RR), triazine tolerant and Clearfield® production systems. Last year he grew Roundup Ready canola on 250 ha, Clearfield varieties on 300 ha and the balance was triazine tolerant.
“I try to rotate a block of each type of canola production system on each farm,” he said. “Just to keep it simple, to keep the rotations going and keep the chemicals in use for as long as possible.”
As President of the local grower group Stirlings to Coast Farmers, Mal shows a keen interest in new varieties, with their introduction an important part of his diversified crop and grazing program.
New varieties have the potential to boost grain yields and his interest was captured when Bayer made small quantities of IH50RR available last year.
IH50RR was the first Bayer Roundup Ready hybrid canola seed released in Australia, bred using germplasm from the Bayer global canola gene pool.
All his canola varieties experienced a dry start with some being dry sown and on non-wetting soils he said they were slow out of the ground.
A good rainfall event at the end of May and into early June and another in July helped them recover and despite a very dry August a reasonable September eased the pressure.
“The Bayer IH50RR was sown within a day of the other RR varieties,” he said. “They all had poor germination to the point that we thought we may have to re-seed.
“Some plants came up six weeks after seeding but we got the numbers eventually, although they were slow to get going.
“We held off the first Roundup spray until the majority of the canola was three leaf, with the second spray when most were at six leaves and achieved good weed control.
“I think the IH50RR was a little shorter in height. It yielded 1.75 t/ha whilst Hyola 505 RR alongside in the same paddock went 1.6 t/ha and 46Y20 in the next paddock went 1.55 t/ha.
“Not only did it yield the best, IH50RR appeared an easy crop to harvest with less bunching up of canola in the swath.
“Ease of swathing and harvest is a major management consideration and I think the longer term benefits of a new company breeding canola varieties can only help us.
“The more companies out there breeding new varieties, the better it will be.”
Roundup Ready® is a Registered trademark of Monsanto technology LLC.
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