Advancing Better Canola: Innovation meets profit
Breeding progress, sharper trait decisions, and grower-driven
insights are redefining canola performance in Canada.
In Canadian canola, innovation is becoming more precise. Yield still matters, but growers increasingly need solutions that help
protect margins amid variable weather, evolving disease pressure and tighter economics. As a result, “better” is no longer
defined by a single headline number but by a broader package of value.
Jed Christianson, Bayer Product
Design Canola Lead
Liz Simpson, Bayer Canola
Portfolio and Launch Lead
        More Connected Approach to Innovation
        That shift sits at the center of Bayer’s
Advancing Better Canola (ABCs) initiative, working
with the Canadian canola industry to redefine
innovation in a way that more closely aligns with
on-farm outcomes. Rather than treating genetics in
isolation, the approach integrates breeding with
agronomy, crop protection and digital tools to help
predict how products will perform in real
conditions.
     The timing is significant. Breeding investments
and portfolio decisions made over the past
decade are now materializing in the field. “It’s
been exciting to see growers experience year-
over-year the performance we promised and start
asking for these products by name,” says Liz
Simpson, Bayer Canola Portfolio and Launch Lead.
     Precision Breeding is improving Bayer’s ability
to predict outcomes, increase genetic gain and
deliver new products to farmers faster. “We’ve
gone from selecting the best varieties to designing
them,” Simpson says. “We know what to target in
the genome to deliver the traits growers need.”
     Simpson notes that Precision Breeding is
already delivering “almost a 2X genetic gain lift,”
with each new variety improving yields by two to
three bushels, compared to gains that were once
closer to half a bushel.
     "The Western Canada Canola/Rapeseed
Recommending Committee (WCC/RRC) has
selected DK401TL as a check in its trial system,
demonstrating Bayer’s leadership in canola
breeding. As the first DEKALB® hybrid used as a
benchmark across all registration trials, it
recognizes the value of TruFlex® LibertyLink®
technology and the hybrid’s consistency in yield
and quality."
Measuring What Matters on Farm
Jed Christianson, Product Design Canola Lead,
says Bayer has spent recent years refining how it
defines “best” in canola. “Farmers want strong,
stable yields, but they’re also looking for traits
that support sustainable, profitable operations.”
A
Those priorities include pod shatter resistance,
disease resistance, lodging tolerance, maturity and
harvestability. Increasingly, Bayer evaluates them
using bio-economic indicators and customer-
informed selection indexes that translate trait
performance into economic impact. In practice,
this means breeding decisions are guided not just
by biological potential, but by which trait
combinations are most likely to deliver profitability
in specific regions and management systems.
     “We can quantify how improvements in things
like disease resistance help preserve yield,”
Christianson says. Combined with farmer
feedback, that insight allows for building products
with the optimal balance of traits to boost and
protect profits.
Building for the Future of Canadian Canola
For Simpson, this broader definition of innovation
is shaping the next frontier of Precision Breeding –
breeding for profitability. By applying bioeconomic
insights earlier in the pipeline, Bayer can identify
seed candidates that are most likely to succeed
under real-world conditions.
     “We’re weighting everything a grower cares
about to make them successful, aligning yield with
the traits that protect performance year in and
year out,” she says. “Even in a tough season, our
goal is that farmers have a consistent, reliable
product that can still pay its bills, regardless of
the weather.”
     Supporting this emphasis on consistency and
risk resilience is continued investment in the
systems behind innovation, including Bayer’s new
Canola Innovation Centre in Winnipeg and an
integrated seed production network across
Western Canada. These investments reinforce
Bayer’s long-term commitment to canola and to
developing more resilient, more sustainable
products and practices for farmers in the future.
“We’ve gone from selecting the best
varieties to designing them.”
BAYER CROP SCIENCE CANADA

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