SBARE Canola Granting Committee

Conference Call Minutes

January 14, 2009

The conference call of the State Board of Agricultural Research and Education’s canola granting committee was called to order at 9 a.m. Voting members present were Wally Brandjord and Dave Gehrtz. Non-voting members present was Brian Jenks. Also present were Barry Coleman, Northern Canola Growers Association and Lori Capouch.

The committee discussed the following proposals:

Winter canola evaluation in North Dakota

Researcher: Burton Johnson

Amount requested: $5,000

Production risk with winter annual crops especially in regions with severe winters are poor spring stands due to winter-kill. Previous evaluations of winter rapeseed in North Dakota during the early to mid 1980s indicated inadequate winter-hardiness and essentially zero plant survival. However, more recently developed cultivars offer greater winter-hardiness and the potential for good crop performance from over-wintering stands.

The study objective is to evaluate current winter canola genotypes in eastern North Dakota for adaptation potential.

Creation of new high seed yield spring canola germplasm from winter rapeseed cultivars to be adapted to North Dakota

Researcher: Phil McClean

Amount requested: $10,032

Increased seed yield is the most important and attractive traits for canola growers. Winter type canola produces over two-fold seed yield compared to spring type canola. Because of severe winter hardiness, winter type canola is not possible to grow in North Dakota. Therefore, this project has been undertaken to develop spring type canola by introducing favorable yield contributing characters from the winter types to create new high seed yield spring canola germplasm adapted to North Dakota. In this project, a winter nursery facilities will be used which will reduce the time of reaching practical homozygosis by one half, and will allow to obtain enough amounts of bulked seed per family for early generation testing and selfed seed for generation advancement.

Funding Decisions

It was moved by Gehrtz and seconded by Brandjord to grant negotiated funding of $5,000 to the project titled “Winter canola evaluation in North Dakota”. The motion carried unanimously.

It was moved by Brandjord and seconded by Gehrtz to grant negotiated funding of up to $9,060 to the project titled “Creation of new high seed yield spring canola germplasm from winter rapeseed cultivars to be adapted to North Dakota”. The motion carried unanimously.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.