Oilseed rape ‘still has role in rotations’

• How powerful pods improve harvestability

• DSV continues investment in new breeding

• Improved phoma and clubroot protection

Growers are being encouraged to look again at oilseed rape and continue giving it a place in their rotations.

While few farmers can shrug off the challenge fending off cabbage stem flea beetle since the neonicotinoid ban, oilseed rape is still worth considering, says Sarah Hawthorne, of plant breeding company DSV.

“Oilseed rape is a crop many producers have grown up with and understand plus there is still a huge demand for it in the UK and a well-established infrastructure built around its marketing and processing,” she says.

“With each year that goes by we’re building up knowledge around the issues of establishment in difficult years and this, combined with new varieties, will only increase the crop’s viability in the future.”

‘Real opportunity’

Ms Hawthorne says rape is a break crop many struggle to find an alternative for – providing an opportunity to control diseases and pests while using a different set of herbicides against weed problems.

DSV bases its breeding on hybridisation. This allows the company to develop stronger varieties, more able to thrive in the current challenging conditions, than is possible with conventional breeding.

“Our trials have shown DSV hybrids consistently produce 15% more root mass than conventional varieties and not only does this help anchor plants, it gives them much greater resistance to abiotic stress and leads to higher GAI and improved photosynthetic potential.

“Other potential benefits include better yields, more stable oil contents, a wider range of drilling dates and the opportunity to use reduced seed rates.”

Genetic resistance

New genetic resistances to two of the UK’s most serious and costly diseases affecting oilseed rape have also been developed recently by DSV, adds Ms Hawthorne.

“Our Phoma Blocker trait, featuring a resistance mechanism for phoma stem canker completely new to Europe, is already featured in the varieties Cognac and Dompteur.”

It also features in other varieties currently going through the UK testing process, with the enhanced clubroot resistance CRE1 (Clubroot Resistance Enhanced 1) now in the variety Cromputer CR.

DSV Phoma Blocker adds a much-required additional layer of security for the future by the addition of LepR1 or RlmS to the widely used Rlm7 resistance, says Ms Hawthone.

“While LepR1 by itself has been shown to have the best resistance to the most common phoma strains in field trials across Europe, we believe it is most effective used in conjunction with other disease resistance traits.

“DSV now uniquely has varieties featuring all three different phoma resistance mechanisms – Rlm7, RlmS and now LepR1 – that can be rotated in the field to minimise major breakdown of any one type of resistance.

“In recent years, DSV’s clubroot protection has also played an important role in keeping spread of the disease in check and also protecting yields for growers.”

DSV has been particularly successful with varieties such as DSV Crossfit CR and DSV Crocodile CR offering good protection without yields being compromised, which has usually been the case before such varieties were introduced.

Harvest performance

CRE1 now adds a broader protection against more pathotypes – and new genetics have also been developed by DSV to improve harvest performance by building on traditional pod shatter characteristics.

“Our latest RL addition DSV Dolphin is the first of a new generation of hybrid varieties specifically developed to combine a key set of genetic traits to protect them against adverse weather conditions later in the season.

“Pod shatter genetics, contained in several DSV oilseed rape varieties and others on the RL, have done much to highlight the issue of harvest seed shed.

“It is, however, now widely understood that how a variety performs during its growth and at harvest is the function of many different characteristics rather than just a single gene or property of a variety.”

Lower losses

With this in mind, DSV breeders have been working on three key pod characteristics around the concept of ‘Powerful Pods’ which contribute significantly to reduced seed losses in adverse conditions, she explains.

“These are greater flexibility of the pod structure, improved function of the pod valve margins and greater space around individual seeds.

“All of these developments add to the future viability of oilseed rape and allow growers to have greater faith in the crop and its ability to deliver high margins.”