The Northern Canola Growers Association is once again sponsoring canola harvest reports through the Red River Farm Network.  Canola Harvest Reports can be accessed at this Red River Farm Network In-Depth site by scrolling down to "Northern Canola Growers Association Harvest Reports."

http://www.rrfn.com/indepth.php

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Scientists conducting field research in North Dakota confirmed that canola produced by modern biotechnology ("genetically modified" or "biotech"), like conventional canola, can establish "volunteer" plants outside of agricultural fields. The results, presented today in a poster at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting, showed that 86 percent of 406 canola plants tested positive for traits that confer tolerance to either glyphosate or glufonisate herbicide - currently, the only two biotech traits available in canola. The plants were collected from 5,400 kilometers of interstate, state and county roads in North Dakota.

"Because 85 to 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian canola crop is grown from biotech seeds, we would expect the same percentage to be reflected in volunteer canola," said Barry Coleman, executive director of the Northern Canola Growers Association and canola grower in North Dakota. "As with conventional canola production, it is not unusual or concerning that volunteer biotech canola was found on roadsides due to occasional seeds being misplaced during transport or harvesting."

When biotech canola was originally evaluated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), they recognized that like traditional canola, biotech canola would volunteer and might require management in some areas. The USDA found no evidence that biotech canola would be more apt than traditional canola to outcompete other plant species. The agencies also considered the possibility that canola would breed with other species. The CFIA concluded that such crosses would not be invasive, nor result in increased weediness or invasiveness, and could be managed by current agronomic practices.

The U.S. EPA has released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) for its recent modeling of the canola oil biodiesel pathway. As of March 26, when the EPA officially announced the final rule for the revised renewable fuel standard (RFS2), the canola pathway had not been analyzed as a biofuel feedstock capable of meeting the required greenhouse gas reduction standards set by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Using the same RFS2 lifecycle analysis modeling approach for other biofuels already approved, the EPA stated that the canola oil biodiesel pathway creates a 50 percent reduction in GHG emissions compared to the diesel fuel baseline.

"These results, if finalized, would justify authorizing the generation of biomass-based diesel RINs for fuel produced by the canola oil biodiesel pathway modeled, assuming that the fuel meets the other definitional criteria for renewable fuel (e.g., produced from renewable biomass, and used to reduce or replace transportation fuel) specified in EISA," EPA said in the NODA memo.

For More Information:  http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=4303