Canola groups recap research priorities at Canola Week

At this year’s Canola Week, representatives from Alberta Canola Producers, SaskOilseeds and Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) presented an overview of each group’s research focus over the past year and moving forward.  

Brittany Visscher, research director at Alberta Canola Producers, says their funding targets for 2024-25 include disease management, resistant weed management, flea beetle management, optimized nutrient uptake efficiency, water management and more. 

“They’re not ranked from most important to least important, because they’re all important. However, number one, the majority of the respondents prioritized improving yield stability under environmental extremes as number one,” says Visscher. 

Doug Heath, research manager at SaskOilseeds, recalls how SaskCanola amalgamated with SaskFlax to form SaskOilseeds earlier this year. Heath spoke about their free disease testing program for farmers that focuses on blackleg, verticillium and clubroot. In 2024, they received samples for 133 individual fields; the results showed 112 samples with Lepstosphaeria maculans (L. maculans) only, eight had L. biglobosa only, 13 had neither and 18 had Verticillium longisporum. They’re still waiting for results for clubroot. In conjunction with that program, they helped to host disease field training days for agronomists. 

Heath says they continued their on-farm research trials, launched in 2023 with nine sites across the province. This year, they expanded to 25 sites. “The program aims to help producers answer questions that they have that are specific to their farm, so producers are able to try a practice or a product on their own farm using their own equipment and existing practices,” says Heath. “The important part of these trials is that they’re randomized and replicated in your field, to help account for field variability and to take some of the anecdotal evidence that might come out if you’re just looking at a single strip.”  

Amy Delaquis, research and agronomy manager at MCGA, says their funding targets include flea beetle management, verticillium stripe, nutrient management, yield stability in environmental extremes, profitability risks and opportunities, as well as commercial hybrid evaluation. Disease and insects were the two research areas with the largest funding in the past year, with 36 per cent going toward disease and 21 per cent allocated to insects. 

Their canola variety trial program launched in 2024 with the goal of providing farmers access to independent, third-party field-testing data for commercial hybrids. “This program has proven,” says Delaquis, “even in its first year, from interest, as the program launched during the season, as well as after these results went out, that this is our most highly sought out information from our members.”