08/02/07 Imi-tolerant canola and rapeseed from U of I

Farm and Ranch August 2, 2007 Growers of dry peas, lentils and chickpeas use a herbicide called Pursuit. It is an imidazolinone and long lived in the soil so brassicas like canola and rapeseed cannot be planted in those fields for six years or more. The Clearfield wheat production system also uses a herbicide from this chemical family. Again limiting rotation to brassicas. At the University of Idaho however, plant breeder Jack Brown has developed spring canola and rapeseed that is tolerant to imidazolinones like Pursuit and Beyond. Brown: "The first two we actually we actually produced commercial seed for last year is a rapeseed and a canola. The rapeseed is called Gem and the canola is Clearwater. They are going to be available commercially this coming year. We will have winter canola and rapeseed, which has the same characteristic, it means you could plant these cultivars in soils with high residue of these chemicals. You can of course apply more herbicide to the crops to kill weeds but that is not what we are advocating to do here. Our primary interest to allow farmers the flexibility to have two broadleaf crops in rotation with cereals." Brown says the big breakthrough in the last year has been the transfer of the Imi-tolerant genes from canola into oriental mustard, the U of I's Pacific Gold variety, which is well adapted to this region. All this has been done through traditional breeding methods. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.