Investment

The Liebe Group R&D committee have identified a timely opportunity to investigate early seeding opportunity for canola. A tropical low system from the 26-30 March 2022 has the potential to bring significant rainfall to the region and has prompted growers to investigate how different varieties perform in an early April sowing window. These weather events are becoming more common as changes to climate sees more late tropical low systems coming through further south and as such providing a non-traditional season break.

The last few seasons have continued to provide these early seeding opportunities, particularly in 2021 off the back of cyclone Seroja, and therefore growers want to better understand the risk and reward of going early. Growers who have sown on these early opportunities have also noticed that the phenology of varieties can change under the earlier sowing conditions, as indicated by Rohan Brills' Variety Phenology work with NSW DPI.

Growers have also identified a lack of experimental data on the consequences of sowing canola in the northern area of Kwinana West before mid-April. There has been research undertaken by DPIRD in Mullewa and Wongan Hills in 2019 and 2020 that investigated time of sowing that showed no yield penalty for seeding in March.