The results of 150 canola trials across the country in 2009 – including 15 containing GM canola – have been released today by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC)-supported National Variety Trials (NVT).

A report, available on the NVT website (nvtonline.com.au), outlines the performance of varieties in the GM canola trials and provides information on how to interpret the trial data.

Five GM trials were conducted in each of the canola growing states where such trials were permitted:
New South Wales – Cullinga, Culcairn, Greenethorpe, Milbrulong and Temora
Victoria – Hamilton, Horsham, Lake Bolac, Shepparton and Teesdale
Western Australia – Corrigin, Dudinin, Frankland, Gibson and Mt Barker
GRDC’s manager gene discovery Dr Juan Juttner said it’s important to recognise this is only the second year of NVT trials for GM canola.

“The 2008 trials were affected by the dry season and frosts, so we only had results from two trial sites,” Dr Juttner said.

“We have more data this year, with 11 trial sites successfully harvested and analysed, but it’s still a limited dataset and difficult to draw any firm conclusions on one variety’s performance compared to another.

“There is an inherent level of variability in the results of variety trials across locations and years, so you need multiple trials across a number of years to confidently predict variety performance.”

GM canola trials contained varieties from the three canola herbicide tolerance groups:

GM/Roundup Ready (RR) – tolerant to glyphosate
Triazine Tolerant (TT) – tolerant to triazine herbicides
Imi Tolerant (Imi) – tolerant to imidazolinone herbicide – also called Clearfield varieties
Dr Juttner said the yield ranking of varieties within and across herbicide tolerance groups varied across sites during 2009.

“The NVT GM canola trials were designed to allow a comparison of varietal yield within and across herbicide tolerance groups – not the efficacy of each herbicide system.

“GM canola is one more piece of technology available for grain growers to consider, and the NVT results provide one of a number of data sources to draw upon to help make decisions regarding its potential use,” Dr Juttner said.

More GM canola trials will be planted in 2010, including a greater number in Western Australia following the State Government’s decision to lift its moratorium.

The NVT is funded by the GRDC to provide grain growers with access to accurate and independent data on the performance of recently released grain and field crop varieties. Each year more than 600 trials are sown at over 250 locations.

Source: SeedQuest