DATA from three-year trials in southern NSW is demonstrating how irrigated canola crops can yield more than four tonnes a hectare with careful varietal selection and optimal agronomic management.
Speaking at recent Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) updates at Yanco, NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) research and development agronomist, Tony Napier, said the impact of variety selection, agronomic management, nitrogen management, plant population and sowing date was examined in three experiments supported by NSW DPI and GRDC.
“Irrigated canola is becoming increasingly common in crop rotations due to improved varieties and current financial returns relative to other crops,” Mr Napier said.
“In all three years we found that variety had a significant effect on canola grain yield.
“In 2016, Pioneer® 45Y88 (CL) had the highest average machine harvested yield across the three experiments at 4.30t/ha and was the highest individually yielding variety in all experiments.”
Nuseed Diamond had the second highest average yield (4.05t/ha) and was the second highest yield in two experiments, followed by Pioneer® 45Y25 (RR) (3.99t/ha).
AV-Garnet, Hyola® 575CL, Nuseed GT-50, Hyola® 600RR and Pioneer® 44Y89 (CL) all had an average yield over 3.6t/ha.
“Variety selection also had a significant effect on grain oil content, with AV-GarnetA, Pioneer® 45Y88 (CL), Hyola® 559TT and Nuseed Diamond all achieving the highest average oil content when averaged across these experiments,” Mr Napier said.
Results showed the three TT varieties, ATR-Bonito, ATR-Gem and Hyola® 559TT were consistently the lowest yielding varieties.
"In the experiments we had no weed control issues,” Mr Napier said.
“Only consider using the TT varieties if you need them for their better weed control options.”
Grain yield was also impacted by the nitrogen rate used.
The very low rate of 150kg of nitrogen per hectare base and no top-dressed nitrogen resulted in a significantly lower grain yield (3.46t/ha) than the three other rates.
The low, medium and high nitrogen application rates yielded 3.72t/ha, 3.85t/ha and 3.79t/ha respectively and did not differ significantly.
Looking at grain oil content, the sowing date and nitrogen application rate both had a significant effect.
“The later sowing date of April 26 resulted in a significantly higher grain oil content of 46.05 per cent compared with 42.44 per cent for the earlier sowing date of April 5,” Mr Napier said.
