Western Australia
July 20, 2015

Research is delivering agronomic packages to Western Australian growers so they can optimise the performance of canola – a valuable break crop.

Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) program manager Tom Giles said the ‘Tactical Break Crop Agronomy’ project was helping growers manage risk in low and medium-rainfall areas.

“Co-funded by the GRDC and the Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA), it has delivered tools such as a canola seeding rate calculator and nitrogen guidelines which can aid decision making at key times,” he said.

In 2015, experiments were expanded to include:

• agronomic considerations of growing F2 hybrids in low-rainfall areas 
• the impact of wider (50-centimetre) row spacing
• precision seeding
• aphid management
• tolerance of canola varieties to residual cereal herbicides and in-crop herbicides 
• very late nitrogen timing in high-rainfall areas 
• aluminium tolerance of canola varieties 
• time of sowing in the Geraldton Port Zone
• suitability of varieties to direct and delayed harvesting 
• canola phenology

More information about the project and other GRDC-funded canola research is contained in the GRDC Supplement Optimising Canola Profitability available at www.grdc.com.au/GCS117 and included in the July-August edition of GRDC’s magazine Ground Cover. To subscribe to Ground Cover visit www.grdc.com.au/groundcover.
 

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

Published: July 20, 2015