SEPTEMBER 2017 GERMINATION.CA 47 are located. That’s significant, but Booker isn’t holding her breath that the new line will become king of the flax world anytime soon. “We’re trying to move farmers away from Bethune and adopt some of the newer genetics, but it’s not easy,” she says. Part of the issue, she acknowledges, is that flax just hasn’t made the same yield gains as other crops over time, so it can be hard to get growers excited about a new variety when they have seed from the old standbys like Bethune and CDC Sorrel on hand and ready to put in the ground. Farmers love the agronomics of those varie- ties, she notes. According to Kofi Agblor, managing director of the CDC, part of the solution is to make the flax program more efficient and by creating new flax varieties that will be better positioned to be adopted by growers. The CDC recently commissioned a study of its flax program, which came up with a number of recommendations for how to make the program better. “It’s what works on the farm that we’re now focusing on,” he says. Flax faces many of the same challenges as barley when it comes to sluggish adoption of new varieties, Agblor points out, so it’s not alone among crops that have a hard time against newer genetics adopted in the marketplace. “If you look at 2016, CDC Copeland was the No. 1 variety of malt barley. That variety is almost 20 years old. The return on investment for barley is lower than for wheat, and because the adoption isn’t there, you can spend a lot of money to bring newer varieties to the marketplace and not have the uptake to really make it worthwhile.” The solution? Avoid the temptation to put forward a new line of flax unless it shows a significant gain in yield or possesses an economically important trait. “Otherwise, what you end up doing is just littering the market with varieties no one is picking up,” Agblor says. According to Kofi Agblor, managing director of the CDC, part of the solution is to make the flax program more efficient and by creating new flax varieties that will be better positioned to be adopted by growers. Phone: (800) 418-9461 Email: conveyors@convey-all.com convey-all.com For Today’s Top Producers THE NEXT GENERATION OF SEED & GRAIN DELIVERY SYSTEMS Phone: (800) 418-9461 Email: conveyors@convey-all.com For Today’s Top Producers THE NEXT GENERATION OF SEED & GRAIN DELIVERY SYSTEMS