Story Posted: October 26, 2010

Selecting a new variety

Every year canola growers have a couple dozen new canola varieties to consider. The decision to add one or two new varieties to their rotation hinges on yield potential, disease management requirements, maturity, lodging resistance and price.

Growers who try new varieties on a couple quarters per year achieve two goals: They keep up with new technology, such as yield advancements and    disease tolerance traits, and meanwhile they keep most of their acres in varieties proven to work on their farms. "Today's varieties are very good, but new varieties have not been tested on your farm under your management," says Doug Moisey, Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialist for central Alberta. "Trying a new variety on 10% to 15% of acres will provide a good first analysis."

So how do growers decide which variety to pick?
They may look for specific traits, such as clubroot resistance, sclerotinia resistance or early maturity. And they may want varieties that fit with their weed spectrum and their plan to rotate herbicide tolerant systems. But they also want to see good yield potential, blackleg resistance, lodging resistance and harvestability.

For performance comparisons, growers talk to neighbours, retailers, agronomists and company representatives as well as the producers who may have conducted seed company variety trials. "When asking about trials, find out the treatments used and whether it was in your region," Moisey says. "Also look at data for other locations to get a better idea how the varieties perform under different conditions."

Moisey reminds growers to check the statistical significance of the data when looking at yield numbers. Trials with many locations and consistency of results can produce results where a 1-2% difference between varieties is real. Trials with only a few locations and highly variable results often cannot accurately determine a clear top yielder. In many cases, these trials may need to show differences of 10% or more between varieties before the results are statistically significant.

Growers also have a number of other sources that show how new varieties stack up against their current favourites. Here they are:

WCC/RRC. Seed registration trial data from the Western Canada Canola/Rapeseed Recommending Committee compares yield, maturity, lodging, height and blackleg ratings. Growers can get a summary based on first year private and second year public data. Contact Raymond Gadoua of the Canola Council of Canada at gadouar@canolacouncil.org or 306-683-2403 and he can email the summary. Gadoua reminds growers that rarely would any of these cultivars have been tested in the exact same set of head to head trials.

Crop insurance. Alberta and Manitoba publish summaries of crop insurance yield reports by variety and zone. Read the 2010 editions online at www.agcanada.com/yieldalberta2010/ for Alberta and www.mmpp.com/mmpp.nsf/mmpp_publications.html for Manitoba. These are based on grower responses, are field by field, and do not include other data such as maturity, lodging and disease resistance. The 2011 editions come out in February or March. To get Saskatchewan crop insurance yield data, go to www.saskcropinsurance.com, click on the "Crop Insurance" heading in the yellow bar at the top, then select "Sask Management Plus" to find yield by variety.

Prairie Canola Variety Trials. PCVT trials did not run in 2010, but 2009 results are online. Go to www.canolacouncil.org. Click on "Grow Canola" in the black banner at the top to find the Prairie Canola Variety Trials page, or enter "PCVT" in the search box at the top.

Provincial seed guides. Seed associations (seed.ab.ca, saskseed.ca, seedmb.ca) have been using PCVT data for their canola comparisons. The staff who compile the guides are looking for alternative third-party sources for their 2011 guides. Seed guides usually come out in December or early in the new year. Last year's guides are online at the addresses above.

Local research groups. Some provincial commodity groups or local grower-directed research groups do variety comparisons. For example:

• BCGPA ran variety comparison trials at Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. Email Clair Langlois at bcgpa-r@pris.ca for results. 
• Irrigation Crop Diversification Corporation (ICDC) in Saskatchewan does independent irrigated crop variety trials. The 2011 pamphlet of results should be ready by early January. The 2010 edition is online at www.irrigationsaskatchewan.com. Click on the ICDC page, then look for "Crop varieties for irrigation."

Seed company data. Farms.com's Yield Data Center at http://yielddata2010.farms.com is a central source of seed company trial data. Seed companies also post trial data on their own websites.

Retail trials. Independent and line companies run their own yield trials. See your local retailer for their data.

For more information, contact a Canola Council of Canada agronomy specialist in your region:

• Derwyn Hammond, Manitoba Region, 204-729-9011
• Jim Bessel, North Central and North Eastern Saskatchewan, 306-373-6771
• Tiffany Martinka, Eastern Saskatchewan, 306-231-3663
• Clint Jurke, Western Saskatchewan, 306-821-2935
• Doug Moisey, North East and East Central Alberta, 780-645-9205
• Troy Prosofsky, Southern Alberta, 403-332-1412
• Erin Brock, Peace Region, 780-568-3326

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