Contact:
Kevin Morthorpe
61 3 544 41434
10-Oct-06
Australian canola needs to play catch-up with Canada
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| In independent trials, the herbicide tolerant Pioneer® hybrid 45Y77 yielded more than one tonne per hectare higher than the industry benchmark TT variety ATR-Grace and almost 300 kilograms per hectare higher than the best TT variety. |
Declining yields and profitability for Australian canola has become a significant issue for the canola industry. The widening gap between canola yields in Australia and Canada is also a concern. But in this potentially bleak situation there is hope that growers can expect a quantum shift in canola productivity during the next decade.
Canola is the backbone of the Australian oilseeds industry and the main oilseed crop. Canola is highly regarded as the best break crop with cereals to improve profitability and for risk management of the overall rotation. Australia is the world’s second largest trader of canola behind Canada, exporting on average 68 per cent of the national production to mainly Japan and the Subcontinent.
A recent industry review by the Australian Oilseeds Federation, published in its Strategic Plan 2010, shows that producers are properly concerned about the profitability of canola, with grain prices not keeping pace with rising input costs and average yields steady or declining in major growing districts. The decline in popularity of canola as a profitable cash crop on its own has resulted in the national canola acreage reducing by 44 per cent over the past five years following dramatic growth of the industry during the 1990s on the back of canola’s agronomic and economic benefits in rotations.
The five-year average canola yields in Australia have shown no improvement in the decade from 1995 to 2005 on a national basis and actually declined in the eastern states of Victoria, South Australia and N.S.W by more than eight per cent. Average yields in 2005 ranged from 1.43 to 1.75 tonnes per hectare between states with overall average of 1.5 tonnes per hectare. In the same year Canadian growers harvested a record 13 million acres of canola with average yield of 1.83 tonnes per hectare, 18 per cent higher than the Australian average. In fact, five-year average canola yields in Canada have increased by 15.8 per cent over the past decade.
Average canola yields in all Australian districts are well below the water-limited potential (Dr Mike Robertson, CSIRO 2004) with the highest potential yields over four tonnes per hectare. Some market demographics from ABARE show there is much potential for productivity gains:
- 23 per cent of hectares are grown in shires with a five-year average canola yield less than one tonne per hectare (i.e. in ‘risky’ or marginal areas).
- 74 per cent of hectares recorded a five-year average yield of 1.5 tonnes per hectare or less.
- Only one per cent of hectares had five-year average yields in more than two tonnes per hectare.
The reasons why Australian canola yields are lagging are likely to be several dry years, delayed seeding during the past few seasons, sclerotinia and blackleg disease and increased dependence on triazine tolerant (TT) varieties.
These trends in yield and reliance on TT-varieties put the Australian canola industry at risk of not being internationally competitive or sustainable in the long term. The development of alternative herbicide tolerant (HT) technologies has been a vital innovation in canola because it does not compete with weeds as well as cereals, which may result in significant yield losses. And Australian canola growers only have the choice of CLEARFIELD® and TT herbicide tolerance options because of state moratoriums on the release of biotechnology in grain-for-food crops such as canola.
The uptake of TT canola has jumped over the past five years across Australia, with up to 70 per cent of canola now TT-varieties. Growers choose TT canola primarily because of broad spectrum weed control and more flexible rotations. Weed management in the canola phase appears to have more to do with the subsequent cereal crop and the ease of herbicide rotation in delaying weed resistance rather than the profitability of canola per se.
The yield and oil penalty associated with the triazine tolerance trait has been known for about 25 years. Australian studies confirm that the rule-of-thumb yield reduction of 25 per cent applies across a wide range of yields and environments. The greatest absolute yield differences between TT and non-TT canola is found in high-yielding environments. Oil contents of TT varieties are reduced more in low rainfall environments (up to six per cent) than in high rainfall environments (two to five per cent) compared to conventional varieties.
The lack of plant vigour of TT varieties significantly reduces the ability of the canola to provide crop competition against weeds. Triazine chemicals are applied pre- and post-emergence for weed control. An additional downside of TT canola is its environmental risk from leaching of triazine chemicals into the water table.
Since their introduction in 2000, the uptake of CLEARFIELD varieties has been rapid and now makes up 25 per cent of canola plantings with conventional varieties dropping to less than five per cent. The key benefit and motivator for CLEARFIELD growers was increased profit in the canola phase from higher yielding varieties and greater flexibility for early seeding. The herbicide On Duty is used post-emergent in-crop, if and when the weed spectrum demands it.
In Canada, triazine and bromoxynil tolerant systems were not widely adopted and are no longer available. Growers in this country have rapidly adopted alternative herbicide tolerant systems such as Roundup Ready® (glyphosate tolerant), CLEARFIELD (imidazolinone tolerant) and LibertyLink® (glufosinate tolerant hybrid) canola without the yield penalty of TT canola. For 2005, conventional canola comprises less than four per cent of canola hectares in Canada. The introduction of transgenic herbicide tolerant varieties (Roundup Ready and LibertyLink) in 1995-96 was a significant turning point for canola growers because of more effective weed control, increased profit and more flexible rotations. They now account for 82 per of the canola area in Canada.
The Canadian industry is also optimistic that new herbicide tolerant technologies will continue to show long-term yield improvements and reduced yield variability as hybrids take over from open-pollinated varieties.
Hybrid canola seed is the result of controlled cross-pollination of male and female canola inbred parents during the production process. The resulting hybrid vigour leads to larger seed, higher yield and stress tolerance.
Parallels can be drawn to the introduction of hybrids in a range of field crops including maize, grain sorghum and sunflower. In all these crops yields more or less doubled and virtually all of these crops are grown as hybrids.
There is potential for more than $250 per hectare improvement in canola profitability over TT canola from growing hybrid canola with the CLEARFIELD trait of herbicide resistance. This was demonstrated in a trial conducted by Southern Farming Systems (SFS) last season. Conducted on a property at Inverleigh in the Western Districts of Victoria, the SFS trial compared 20 canola hybrids and varieties from the CLEARFIELD, triazine tolerant (TT) and conventional types side-by-side with each other. Four of the top six performers were canola hybrids.
The new CLEARFIELD hybrid Pioneer® 45Y77 yielded 2.79 tonnes per hectare – more than one tonne per hectare higher than the industry benchmark TT variety ATR-Grace and almost 300 kilograms per hectare higher than the best TT variety. It is the first herbicide tolerant hybrid released onto the Australian market.
The potential for increased profitability from growing CLEARFIELD and hybrid canola has been clearly demonstrated in these independent on-farm trials and it makes them attractive alternatives to TT canola for Australian growers.
In the future, providing access to exciting new alternative herbicide tolerant options will help growers reduce their reliance on TT canola and should also result in extending the useful life of other herbicide groups commonly used in the cereal and pulse phases of crop rotations.
The past ten years has been a sufficiently long time frame for state governments to assess market impact and customer reactions to the introduction of biotechnology.
The lifting of state moratoriums would help Australian canola growers regain a competitive position in yield and would allow them to rotate between multiple weed management systems from year to year.
ENDS