Being Triazine tolerant (TT) they were concerned about its yielding ability but ended up happily surprised by its end result, which yielded 2.4 tonnes to the hectare.

As well as planting 300ha of wheat and 150ha of hybrid and conventional canola at Manildra, for the first time this year they planted a 50ha paddock with Monola as a seed crop for company Nu Seed.

“We were a bit apprehensive to grow it initially because it’s a TT variety and they don’t usually yield as well as hybrids and conventional canola, but it had a great year,” Mr Quigley said.

“Once we’ve harvested the crop we put it in silos on-farm; each silo is sampled as seed goes in and we end up with a bag of canola that goes away to Nu Seed for testing.”

The Monola seed crop was sown on April 23 at three kilograms to the hectare with 200kg of single super and 50kg of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) applied at sowing.

It was sown in a pasture paddock, which had been sprayed in October 2010 and through the summer.

The paddock was also chisel-ploughed and 30kg/ha of nitrogen was applied before sowing.

Mr Quigley said the variety probably started flowering a week earlier and finished a week later than the conventional types.

“It wasn’t as bulky as the conventionals and hybrids, but it yielded just as well.

“We windrowed it last so it had a long flowering period, which is a good thing with canola because it can put all that into yield.”

Mr Quigley said the only negative he could see with longer flowering was that the crop could be more susceptible to aphid and heliothis attack towards the end of growing.

All the canola was harvested between middle to late November before any issues with wet weather.

“Monola yielded 2.4t/ha, which is great considering it’s a TT variety,” Mr Quigley said.

The yield was similar to their other canola crops with the conventionals reaching between 2.4 and 2.5t/ha and hybrids a little bit better on 2.6 to 2.7t/ha.

“In the whole scheme of things, if you’re comparing Triazine-resistant varieties a lot of the Triazine crops are down about the 1.5 to two tonnes to the hectare,” Mr Quigley said.

“The Monola was a real surprise for us. On a broadacre scale it stacked up really well from what we expected.”