Melbourne, Australia
February 14, 2013
Cameron Turner, who farms at Pleasant Hills in the Lockhart/Walbundrie area, is a keen canola grower who says he is “pretty impressed” with the architecture and features of the new Bayer canola variety.
IH50RR is the first Bayer Roundup Ready® (RR) hybrid canola seed released in Australia, bred using germplasm from the Bayer global canola gene pool. In Cameron’s situation, IH50RR was planted right alongside Hyola 505 for comparison.
Whilst it yielded the same with the same oil content, Cameron said agronomic features set it apart and he feels the new IH50RR has plenty to offer.
“It came up well,” he said. “Once established it seemed to conserve its energy and growth for a couple of weeks, which left us more time to get the Roundup on and that was a positive feature for us.
“At the same time the 505 overtook it and grew quickly. I got caught on another property where the 505 grew so quick early on I didn’t get the second spray on and that second spray does a lot of the work.
“It doesn’t have to be much, just five or six days to get that extra ryegrass germination and be able to nail the weeds is tremendous.”
Cameron said IH50RR came already treated with Jockey® Stayer® and Gaucho® and the seed quality was excellent. IH50RR has a provisional blackleg rating of R-MR.
He said his property had grown crops continuously for about 20 years and blackleg resistance rating was always a high priority with canola variety selection.
“The IH50RR looked impressive all year and it was a lot easier to strip and windrow. It was shorter by about 10 to 20 cm and had more of the pods at the top of the canopy.
“A smaller windrow meant less material for the same amount of seed, or more seeds per cubic metre of biomass if you like. So we had less material that had to go through the header.
“It was easy five to six days earlier maturity than the 505 and both varieties ended up being windrowed at similar stages of maturity so it was a good comparison.”
Cameron said his IH50RR yielded 1.8 t/ha with 45% oil and on balance was the best canola crop he had grown on his farm.
“I think the idea is to get the best vigour varieties, get them in on time with the best crop establishment,” he said.
“We bought a Seed Hawk to sow our crop and the knife points and press wheels give very accurate seed placement.”
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