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Harvestability of new canola stacks up


Melbourne, Australia
February 14, 2013

Most canola grown in Australia is windrowed, but an increasing number of growers like Colin de Grussa have moved towards direct heading. Colin cites reduced harvest costs and improved management as two reasons behind the shift on his property northeast of Esperance

There’s no doubt, advances in harvest machinery and improved varieties with faster maturation and less shatter prone pods are allowing direct heading to become a feasible option.

Colin said variety choice is important and in 2012 he trialled and really liked the new Bayer canola variety IH50RR. IH50RR is the first Bayer Roundup Ready® (RR) hybrid canola seed released in Australia, bred using germplasm from the Bayer global canola gene pool.

Colin said it may be coincidental, but when he was in Belgium in 2011 on a trip he talked with Bayer representatives about a harvesting trait they are developing.

Bayer had isolated and managed to ‘turn off’ a gene that caused the canola pods to open and it was so successful they had difficulty harvesting the crop because it was so hard to thresh. But he said they had found a way to ‘turn it half off’.

Whilst that trait technology may still be a way off being introduced in Australia, Colin did say in comparison with Hyola 404RR and 43Y23, the Bayer variety IH50RR was a dream to harvest.

“The IH50RR was probably more evenly ripe than the 404 in the same paddock, had less green stems in it, which made it easier to direct head and in terms of pod shatter, it was as good as the others,” he said

“I liked the way it was extremely vigorous during the younger growth stage, much more so than the 404 and a lot more leaf, which is better for weed competition.

“So those traits were pretty good. It was good quality seed that developed into an even crop with very few rogue plants, unlike some of the other varieties.

“Overall, it yielded 2.8 t/ha with around 45% oil content. I was very happy with it and it will be the one I grow this year.

“The big issue for us with canola is harvestability and the biggest problem we have at Esperance is wind.

“No matter how big or heavy the swath is, we get a lot of wind damage and it adds up to more than you think.

“We did our own header trials in 2010 and again in 2011 comparing side by side swathing and direct heading.

“The shattering loss at swathing and wind damage in the row added up to more than the losses from direct heading.

“We’ve found the canola tends to cope a lot better as a standing crop than it does in a windrow.

“So we moved away from swathing because it was an extra cost and an extra job and because there was no benefit in it for us from all the trials we’ve done.

“The other thing we’ve found with direct heading is that you tend to get higher oil content.

“What we found with the swathing was that you always get those plants that have not reached the same maturity, so you’ll get a lot of shrivelled seed, whereas when we direct head, we get better seed size.”

Colin estimated the losses this year from direct heading to be about 0.4%.

He said they harvested with an auger front rather than a belt front.

“That was a choice we made this year, mainly for direct heading canola, but also because we prefer the auger front. They are just seem a bit simpler, with a more positive feed,” he said.

 



More news from: Bayer CropScience Australia


Website: http://www.bayercropscience.com.au

Published: February 20, 2013



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