DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF CANOLA IN THE GREAT PLAINS REGION

The goal of this project is to deliver practical outcomes to make winter canola an agronomically and economically viable rotation crop. The long-term expected outcome of this multi-state, interdisciplinary, and integrated research and extension project is to increase winter canola acres and production in the cropping systems of the southern Great Plains (SGP). To stimulate acreage and production increases, the project will focus on the following objectives.Objective 1: Develop and evaluate high yielding and regionally-adapted winter canola cultivars and hybrids. Priority traits for breeding and evaluation include: winter survival, tolerance to sulfonylurea herbicide carryover, tolerance to post-emergence applications of glyphosate herbicide, yield, oil quality and quantity, hybrid parent lines, testcross hybrids, and blackleg (Leptosphaeria maculans) tolerance. Appropriate protocols, statistical methods, and analysis are used to advance conventional and herbicide resistant breeding populations, hybrid parent lines, and finished cultivars.Objective 2: Improve canola cropping systems by addressing agronomic production issues identified through stakeholder input. Production topics to be addressed include source-sink yield relationships, establishment, crop input optimization, crop rotation, and fertility management. Results will enable producers to identify canola cropping systems that are effective, feasible, and profitable.Objective 3: Using an information dissemination plan, deliver cultivar and agronomic management technologies to new and experienced canola growers through appropriate extension programs. Methods of delivery may include, but are not limited to, field days, virtual field tours, production schools, extension and journal publications, professional society meetings, agronomy updates, radio and television interviews, web-based applications, peer-to-peer interactions, and social media updates.