WCC/RRC Maintains Quality Control

All canola seed sold in Western Canada passes through the Western Canada Canola/Rapeseed Recommending Committee. It coordinates trials at dozens of sites across the Prairies each year to check new candidate cultivars to make sure they meet canola standards for oil quality. It has a pathology subcommittee that, for example, introduces protocols for the blackleg major gene labeling system. And it supports the new pod shatter rating system.

The recommending committee has 14 members, including four from industry, one breeder, one pathology representative, and three growers (one from each provincial grower organization), three commercial representatives, one seed grower and one animal nutrition representative.

Trials provide objective comparisons on oil content, meal protein content, glucosinolates, saturates, erucic acid, blackleg resistance and other criteria. Standardized check cultivars are used, and all comparisons are based on head-to-head data. A summary package is prepared, according to WCC/RRC procedures, and the committee uses this to evaluate candidate cultivars for variety recommendation.

Two Saskatoon-based Canola Council of Canada (CCC) staff keep the process moving at WCC/RRC. Raymond Gadoua recently retired as WCC/RRC coordinator and secretary after 24 years on the job. Cheryl Kiefer is the administrative assistant and oilseed technician.

Curtis Rempel, CCC vice president for crop production and innovation, says Gadoua has worked with industry and academic partners to develop and evolve an industry-led variety registration system that has served the canola value chain extremely effectively. “Under Raymond’s stewardship and supervision, growers to end-users can be assured that every cultivar registered and grown in Canada meets the quality and disease standards that define canola,” Rempel says. “This is key to an internationally recognized brand and a foundation of a nearly $30 billion dollar Canadian industry.”