New canola varieties and private-public partnerships are helping canola producers in Kansas and the Southern Great Plains, according to Kansas State University canola breeder Mike Stamm.
Stamm explains the partnerships in a short Youtube video from Dan Donnert, K-State Research and Extension videographer, at: https://youtu.be/NPgCxrKw434
The following are comments by Stamm from the video:
Figure 1. Mike Stamm, K-State canola breeder, says private-public partnerships are benefitting canola producers in Kansas. Source of photos, K-State Research and Extension video: https://youtu.be/NPgCxrKw434
Winter canola acres in Kansas have grown from just a few thousand not long ago to 40,000-50,000 acres now in a given year. Producers are growing winter canola in rotation with wheat because they are seeing a benefit to wheat yield and quality, improved weed management, and a reduction in wheat diseases.
In the last three years, K-State has released three winter canola varieties that are adapted to Kansas and the southern Great Plains. We’ve licensed these winter canola cultivars to major seed companies that will then market them to producers.
Currently there are about 25 commercial varieties of winter canola that can be grown in Kansas. Some are more adapted to the southern tier of counties; others are more adapted to the central part of the state.
Kansas State University has a very active winter canola breeding program. In the last 3 to 4 years we have released three Roundup Ready winter canola cultivars. We currently have one of those cultivars licensed to Monsanto and two of those cultivars licensed to Croplan Genetics. This is a great private-public relationship where we’re working on developing Roundup Ready cultivars that are adapted to Kansas and the southern Great Plains. Then we work with these major seed companies to market those varieties to producers in the state.
Figure 2. K-State has a very active winter canola breeding and production management research program.
In addition to the Roundup Ready winter canola breeding we’re doing, we’re also developing conventional varieties that have excellent disease tolerance and winter survival characteristics that will allow the planting of winter canola across the entire state.
Another private-public partnership we have is with AGCO. What we are looking at with AGCO is a novel residue management system for planting winter canola.
Over the years, we’ve had some struggles seeding winter canola in a no-till cropping system. The biggest issue we see is managing the residue from the previous crop, and getting that residue out of the seed row. AGCO approached us with the idea of evaluating this novel residue management system for winter canola and comparing that residue management system with producer practices that are commonly used across the state.
Figure 3. Managing crop residue from the previous crop has been a challenge in getting good stand establishment of winter canola in the southern Great Plains.
Some of the common producer practices are burning the previous crop residue and then using a no-till planter or drill to seed canola. Others are just using no-till planters to move the previous crop’s residue so that the canola will establish and overwinter.
There are 10 other breeding companies or marketing groups that are interested in bringing more winter canola cultivars to the southern Great Plains for producers. This shows great interest in our southern Great Plains region and we hope through this interest we’re able to increase the amount of winter canola acreage in our state and the southern Great Plains as a whole, and become one of the major winter canola growing regions in the U.S.
Steve Watson, Agronomy eUpdate Editor
swatson@ksu.edu
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