As we promised in our November update, following is an update on supply for 2023 along with some additional information for growers.
How our hybrid production crops are progressing
Australian production crops:
- Harvest in the east of Australia has just started and is later this year due to the soft finish to the season and ongoing challenges with extremely wet paddocks.
- Any impact from the extensive flooding in Eastern states is still to be fully determined, especially as more weather events are predicted. We will be doing additional quality testing so won’t know our full availability until late January / early February.
- Crops in the Murrumbidgee vicinity have experienced some inundation, but most are on irrigation bays so have good drainage.
Overseas production crops:
Harvest in North America has finished, and we’re pleased to report that we have come close to achieving our production target. As we mentioned in our previous update, we significantly increased our target this year so this represents a sizeable increase on last year’s production.
Some yields were affected by local heat events but fortunately we were spared the extreme temperatures that occurred during flowering last season. We’re now managing the logistics of moving all this seed to Australia.
Our first four shipments of seed have arrived in port and three have already cleared quarantine inspection in Melbourne, approximately six weeks ahead of last year’s schedule.
More shipments are currently on the water and we’re not seeing the huge delays in vessel waiting times that we experienced last year.
Our first direct shipments to Western Australia have been unloaded in Fremantle port, ahead of processing by our local partners.
Production crops in other overseas regions are at varying stages depending on their location and all are progressing well.
All shipments will go through Australian quarantine and Nuseed’s stringent QA process, before being treated and packed then shipped out to stores from February 2023.
Our overall supply position for our hybrid varieties will be finalised once all production crops have been harvested and the seed passes our stringent quality assurance tests. We anticipate this being confirmed in late January / early February and will provide our next update at this time.
We are working with stores on supply across our portfolio so please talk to your local store for any questions about your seed orders for 2023.
Retention of hybrid canola seed
Some growers may be considering retaining seed from this year’s harvest of your hybrid canola variety to plant in 2023, with the expectation that you will see the same high performance in next year’s harvest.
We advise against retaining hybrid seed because retained F2 hybrid seed can have unwanted traits like sterility, a lack of herbicide tolerance and decreased blackleg resistance. We have published a tech note explaining why – learn more here.
For further information please speak to your local Nuseed Area Sales Manager or consult your agronomist.
Learn more about hybrid canola seed production
In our November update we shared a short animation explaining how we produce hybrid canola seed, and why the production process differs from your canola crops. If you missed that update you can view the video here.
That animation has been so popular that we have produced two additional episodes explaining why hybrid production crops are lower yielding than commercial crops, and why production crops require 3-5 km isolation from other canola crops.
Follow these links to view the new videos:
We are in the process of producing more animations that explain our R&D and quality assurance processes and we look forward to sharing them with you in future updates.
Supply of open pollinated triazine tolerant varieties
Due to the wet conditions, we have conducted helicopter inspections of our OP TT production crops to assess their progress. We’re pleased to report that we’re on target to achieve 100% of our production plan so are anticipating plentiful supply of these varieties for next year.
Learn more about our OP TT range.
End Point Royalties (EPR)
There are seven Nuseed canola varieties which are subject to an End Point Royalty of $5/tonne for the 2022 harvest:
Open pollinated triazine tolerant varieties:
- ATR Bluefin
- ATR Bonito
- ATR Mako
- ATR Wahoo
Hybrid triazine tolerant varieties*
* A reminder that the EPR on all HyTTec hybrid TTs has been reduced to $5 per tonne for the 2022 harvest.
With harvest well underway in most regions we would like to remind growers of the importance of accurately declaring your EPR varieties at delivery.
The EPR program helps support our ongoing work to develop new high-performing canola varieties. You can learn more about the EPR program here.
Thank you
Thank you for your ongoing support of Nuseed’s canola varieties, bred right here in Australia for Australian growing conditions.
We will be sharing more updates to keep you informed as the 2023 planting season approaches.
Please reach out to your local seed supplier or Nuseed Area Sales Manager for more information at any time.
We wish you all the best for a safe and successful harvest, and a relaxing break if you have already finished.
