Optimising varieties can boost canola yields

Grain growers can realise up to a 2t/ha yield benefit in canola crops by looking at their cultivar choices, new research shows.

Variety choice in canola has proven to be the most important management decision for grain growers to maximise their yields, according to a recent study.

It is also one of the most economic management changes growers can make, research agronomist Rohan Brill said at a recent Grains Research and Development Corporation research update.

Mr Brill is working on the hyper yielding crops project led by FAR Australia and run by GRDC.

The project, run across three sites at Wallendbeen in NSW, Millicent in South Australia and Gnawarre in southwest Victoria, aimed to determine the management strategies that achieved 5 tonnes/ha in grain yield from canola crops.

The primary factors investigated in the project included variety choice, nutrient management, disease management and plant density.

Ranking these factors, Mr Brill said variety choice was the most important driver of differences in grain yield, accounting for an average of 2 tonnes/ha difference in yield for the best and worst treatments.

Nitrogen application ranked second, and fungicide management ranked third.

Research agronomist Rohan Brill is working on the hyper yielding crops project led by FAR Australia and run by GRDC.

“We’ve got to think of the crop in terms of building the yield and then protecting the yield,” Mr Brill said.

“Variety builds the yield, converts the yield to grain and is also very important for disease management and resistance.

“Whereas nitrogen and plant density build the yield and then fungicide protects the yield, variety choice is able to do both.”

Mr Brill said the other benefit in variety choice as a management factor was the relatively similar price substitution between varieties.

“In terms of one hybrid versus another, they’re going to roughly cost the same,” he said.

“To increase nitrogen is going to cost more money but to switch to the most suited variety is no extra cost.”

Mr Brill said growers could capitalise on inherent paddock fertility by incorporating the primary factors to push their yield potentials.

“But don’t think you need to grow these massive crops that windrowers can’t handle,” he said.

“They’re not like that; they’re more dense crops, rather than tall crops.

“What we’re seeing is you need to have a good paddock to start with. You’re not going to grow a 5 tonne/ha crop on a paddock that’s had five years of cereal crops with 70kg of urea per year and sitting at 40kg of nitrogen available.”

Being aware of the critical growth period for your variety of canola was another important time management factor to grow plant biomass.

“We found that the most important period for growth was about a week after the crop started flowering to a month after flowering.”

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