FOLLOWING the extremely wet conditions through most parts of the Great Southern last year, canola growers in the area can use findings from a grower-led canola variety trial to make informed decisions on their crop choices for this year.
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Kendenup farmer Ben Oldfield was selected to trial Nuseed's new mid-season Roundup Ready hybrid, GT-53, against his commercial crop in 2016 as part of Nuseed's Crop Agronomy Trial (CAT) program.
His observations are now particularly valuable, given that the National Variety Trials in the region were flooded and unable to report results.
"We had one of our wettest seasons in 30 years with an annual rainfall of more than 730 millimetres and hardly any dry days through winter," Mr Oldfield said.
While the wet conditions were challenging, the crops made the most of the moisture and produced very high yields.
At harvest, the GT-53 yielded 3.3 tonnes per hectare with 47 per cent oil.
"I have always been impressed with the performance of Nuseed GT-50, so I was keen to see how Nuseed could improve on that with GT-53," he said.
"In 2015, one of our paddocks of GT-50 averaged 3.2 t/ha, so it looks like they've done it."
The GT-53 was seeded on April 14 with 100 kilograms per hectare of a complete starter fertiliser, in the middle of a paddock of Hyola 600 RR.
"The crops were seeded into perfect conditions, with warm, damp soil, and this allowed both varieties to surge out of the ground," Mr Oldfield said.
"The GT-53 in particular had excellent early vigour which is brilliant for weed competition.
"Because it gets so wet here, the quicker the crop can cover the ground and smother the weeds, the better."
Mr Oldfield said the nitrogen strategy for canola was to keep to a maintenance level early, then apply significant amounts when the crop starts bolting.
He said this strategy seemed to agree with GT-53.
"It quickly established a great pod depth and filled the pods to the full extent," he said.
They top-dressed 150 kg/ha of sulphate of ammonia on May 20, followed by a 2 litres per hectare glyphosate 450 spray 10 days later.
Flexi-N was applied twice, with 100 L/ha used in late June and 70 L/ha applied in a tank mix with Prosaro fungicide on July 20.
This took the crop's total nitrogen supply to 100 units of nitrogen from seeding to July.
"The crops enjoyed the long, cool, wet flowering period and were both clean for blackleg," he said.
Nuseed GT-53 is rated 'R' for blackleg resistance, the highest possible resistance level.
The Gillamii Centre grower group, Cranbrook, visited the CAT trial in mid-October as part of its canola field walk itinerary.
At this stage, the GT-53 had finished flowering and the depth of pods was "exceptional", according to Nuseed South Western Australia territory sales manager Andrew Royce.
"We really appreciate Ben's assistance and time with having growers and agronomists across the farm last spring," he said.
"The field walk gave local growers a unique opportunity to visually assess a new variety and track how it performs locally.
"Nuseed is continually developing new canola varieties to suit Australian conditions and I would encourage growers to participate in our CAT program to assess these developing varieties at a local level before commercial release."
Mr Oldfield said GT-53 finished flowering three weeks before the rest of the paddock, which could offer growers opportunities with later seeding.
"I think you could still be seeding to mid May and it would still have time to finish well," Mr Oldfield said.
"The GT-53 was taller than I thought it would be, but it had good standability for direct heading."
At times, poor standability can cause them some frustration, especially in high yielding, damp seasons.
The crops were harvested in December, with the GT-53 yielding 3.3 t/ha.
"Overall, I think the GT-53 has a big top-end potential and would suit seeding from mid April through to mid May," he said.
