Winter Canola Cultivar Comparison Chart

Importance of Cultivar Selection

Cultivar selection is perhaps the most important decision that is made in producing a canola crop. Therefore, producers should carefully review cultivar characteristics and choose varieties that match their management style. This publication is designed to help producers make educated decisions about which cultivars to grow. Additional information on yield potential of cultivars can be found at www.canola.okstate.edu.

 

Open-Pollinated Variety vs. Hybrid

One key difference in many of the commercially available cultivars is some are hybrids and others are open-pollinated (OP). A hybrid is the first generation of seed produced from a cross between two or more genetically unique inbred parent lines. The combination of genes from the two parents results in a hybrid plant that exhibits all of the most desirable characteristics of the two parents and performs better than either. Hybrid seed is usually 30 percent to 40 percent larger than OP varieties. This does not necessarily translate into increased yield potential but may make seeding easier. Seed costs of hybrid canola are greater than OP varieties due to the cost of producing the hybrid seed. Hybrids display more vigorous growth in the fall compared to OP varieties. The vigorous fall growth makes planting date extremely important for hybrids, planting too early may result in increased risk of winter kill.

 

Herbicide Resistance

Currently, producers have the option of selecting cultivars that are either Roundup® Ready or conventional cultivars. Roundup® Ready cultivars can be over-sprayed with glyphosate during the growing season before blooming to control weed. This may be an important trait if your main objective is to clean up a weeds infested field.

 

Sulfonylurea Residual Tolerant

Another cultivar characteristic that may be important is sulfonylurea (SU) residual tolerance. If fields have a history of SU use within the last year, an SU tolerant cultivar will need to be selected.

 

Winter Survival

Winter survival is a characteristic that should be considered if planting in the northern part of the state. Most of the commercially available cultivars have shown excellent winter hardiness and as a result winter survival has not been an issue if the crop was planted on time.

 

pH Tolerance/Acid Soil Tolerance

Currently a few of the cultivars that are commercially available do appear to have better tolerance to acidic soil conditions than others. However, OSU has not collected enough data to generate ratings on pH tolerance. Refer to individual companies for pH tolerance. Please remember that correcting soil pH with lime is the best solution for growing canola in acidic soils. Planting a pH tolerant cultivar is a band-aid solution and not a permanent fix.

 

Yield

All commercially available cultivars have the genetics for reasonably high yield, but many more production factors can have a greater impact on yield than the cultivar itself. While yield is an important factor in cultivar selection, do not use it as the only selection criteria. Look for stable, consistent performance over years and locations when evaluating cultivars. Most cultivars go through a multitude of testing and the data generated can be useful in making decisions. Growers may not want a cultivar that averaged 115 percent above the checks for a specific area if they know that its performance ranged from 60 percent to 170 percent of the checks over years and locations. Look for consistency across years.

 

Table 1a and 1b. Winter Canola Comparison Chart.

 † Hybrid or open-pollinated

‡ Roundup Ready

§ Variety/hybrid has tolerance to sulfonylurea residual.

*1=exceptional; 2=above; 3=average; 4=below; 5=below

 

Chad Godsey

Associate Professor, Oilseed Cropping Specialist

 

Mark Boyles

Assistant Extension Specialist