Southern Great Plains Winter Canola Cultivar TrendsMichael Stamm, Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

Introduction• Since 2003, winter canola hectares have increased from a few

thousand to nearly 100,000 annually

• Introduction of winter canola into the southern Great Plains (SGP)

has been primarily achieved by using open-pollinated (OP) cultivars

• Although the majority U.S. winter canola market is planted to OP

cultivars, hybrids are gaining favor, especially in higher-yielding

environments such as the eastern Great Plains and Midwest

• Heterosis of 25% or greater has been observed in canola worldwide

• Other hybrid benefits include vigorous fall establishment, higher oil

content, and pod shatter tolerance

• Initial adaptability of hybrids to the SGP was not ideal; hybrids

lacked winter hardiness, but this trait has improved with time

Objective & Methods• Yield trends were evaluated using data from SGP locations of the

National Winter Canola Variety Trial (NWCVT)

• The NWCVT is coordinated by Kansas State University and

provides producers, marketers, and breeders valuable performance

data for winter canola across about 35 U.S. locations annually

• Two high-yielding cultivars were plotted from 2012-2016 to show

yield trends in high and low-yielding SGP environments

• Proc MIXED in SAS 9.3 was used to conduct head-to-head

comparisons of OP and hybrid cultivar checks for years 2012-2015

• Beginning in the 2015-16 growing season, OP and hybrid cultivars

were seeded in side-by-side trials at full-sized NWCVT sites

• This new procedure was undertaken to minimize competition and

performance bias between the two cultivar types

Conclusions• Winter canola hybrids introduced over the past five years show

improved performance, even in yield limited environments

• Current OP cultivars show a slight disadvantage in yield over SGP

environments although winter survival is often greater than hybrids

• Competitive OP cultivars offer benefits to new canola growers such

as lower seed cost and less production risk than hybrids

• Within the next decade, it is anticipated that the majority of winter

canola hectares will be planted to hybrid winter canola

• The K-State canola breeding program will contribute adapted

winter canola hybrid parent lines using the OGURA-INRA

cytoplasmic male sterility system

• Performance should continue to improve as adapted parent lines

and hybrids are introduced in the SGP

Acknowledgments• This research was funded through the USDA-NIFA Supplemental

and Alternative Crops Competitive Grants program, proposal

number 2015-06585, and with entry fees collected from the

National Winter Canola Variety Trial

Results• Spring type canola makes up the majority of U.S. hectares (Figure 1)

• Initially, SGP yields were below the national average, but the influx of

EU hybrids and genetic gain through breeding have contributed to

yields trending above the national average

• Hybrid winter canola cultivars were first introduced into the USA and

NWCVT testing in 2003 (Figure 2)

• The number of hybrids tested in the NWCVT has increased to

average one-half or more of the total entries annually

• Most hybrids tested are contributed by overseas seed companies

with an interest in growing the U.S. market for winter canola

• In a head-to-head comparison, hybrids checks significantly out

yielded most of the OP checks, except for ‘Riley’ (Table 1)

• The top hybrid check, ‘Safran’ averaged about 13% more than Riley

• OP cultivars generally show better winter survival than hybrid

cultivars. Hybrid checks were approximately to the level of ‘Wichita,’

the cultivar that set the standard for winter survival.

• Surprisingly, oil contents were equal

Figure 1. Total planted hectares and yield trends for U.S. canola and

SGP winter canola, 1995-2016 (Sources: USDA-NASS; NWCVT).

Figures 6 & 7. Male sterile parent line development using the OGURA-

INRA hybrid breeding system at Kansas State University.

Figure 5. NWCVT site at Kiowa, KS, on April 21, 2016.

Table 2. Yield of the top five OP and hybrid cultivars from the

2016 NWCVT at Kiowa, KS.

Name Source Type

Fall vigor† Grain yield

1-5 Mg ha-1

Quartz Photosyntech OP 2.7 3.8

VSX-3 Virginia State OP 3.3 3.6

Riley Kansas State OP 2.3 3.4

HyCLASS125W CROPLAN OP 4.3 3.4

KSUR1211 Kansas State OP 3.3 3.4

Mean‡ 3.4 3.2

CV 15.0 12.9

LSD (0.05) 0.8 NS

Mercedes Rubisco Seeds Hyb 3.0 4.4

Einstein DL Seeds Hyb 4.0 4.3

MH12AY27 MOMONT Hyb 2.0 4.2

PX112 DuPont Pioneer Hyb 1.7 4.2

Inspiration Rubisco Seeds Hyb 3.3 3.9

Mean‡ 3.2 3.7

CV 15.0 8.6

LSD (0.05) 0.8 0.5†Fall vigor rated as 1=least vigorous to 5=most vigorous‡Mean is a reflection of all entries in the trial

Table 1. Head-to-head comparison of OP and hybrid check cultivars

across Great Plains environments tested in the NWCVT, 2012-2015.

Name` Type Source

Grain

yield

Percentage of

test-yield avg.

Winter

survival† Total oil

Mg ha-1 % % g kg-1

DKW46-15 OP DEKALB 2.1 85.4 60.8 393

HyCLASS115W OP CROPLAN 2.3 91.1 54.4 384

Riley OP Kansas State 2.7 107.7 62.8 391

Wichita OP Kansas State 2.4 98.2 55.5 385

46W94 HYB DuPont Pioneer 2.7 104.0 44.6 394

Chrome HYB Photosyntech 2.9 114..5 45.7 396

Hornet HYB Rubisco Seeds 2.7 104.0 57.7 392

Safran HYB Rubisco Seeds 3.1 125.5 52.1 388

P-value <0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.3250

LSD (0.05) 0.1 6.6 4.1 ns

Site years 22 22 18 24†Winter survival rated as the percent of surviving fall stand.

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OP-Exp Hybrid-Exp OP-Comm Hybrid-Comm

y = 0.022x + 1.398

R² = 0.4946

y = 0.0672x + 0.9641

R² = 0.5334

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Great Plains All Other States U.S. Yield Great Plains Yield

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Figure 2. Number of OPs and hybrids (experimental and commercial)

tested in the National Winter Canola Variety Trial, 1995 to 2017.

Figure 4. Yield regression of Riley and Mercedes across different

yield environments in the SGP, 2012-2016

Results• New EU hybrids such as ‘Mercedes’ have shown improved

adaptability (Figure 4)

• Even in the lower yielding environments (0.5 to 1.5 Mg ha-1),

Mercedes shows a slight yield advantage to Riley

• As environmental yield potential improved, the yield advantage of

Mercedes also increased; however, Riley was typically within 1 Mg

ha-1 of Mercedes in these environments

• The 2016 NWCVT at Kiowa, KS provided conditions for optimal

hybrid performance (Table 2), with mean yield over 3.7 Mg ha-1

• The top OP cultivar yielded about 13% less than the top hybrid

• Fall vigor of the hybrids averaged less than the OP cultivars; mostly

because of some less-vigorous semi-dwarf hybrids in the trial

• Entries in the 2017 NWCVT were split into OP and hybrid tests with

common checks to allow for better comparison at trial sites

Riley: y = 0.9702x + 0.1902 R2 = 0.9208

Mercedes: y = 1.0153x + 0.265 R2 = 0.9118

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Genotype Mean (Mg ha-1)

Environment Mean (Mg ha-1)

OP - Riley Hyb - Mercedes

Border HybridsOPs

UID: 100318