Canada's golden crop isn't built for heat. Canola breeders hope to fix that

Canola is the golden crop of the prairies — both in terms of colour and profitability. But the signature export of Western Canada isn't adapted to long periods of heat, as farmers saw last year when extreme heat and drought cut canola yields drastically.

As climate change alters growing conditions, Canadian researchers are working with farmers to breed canola for a future of extremes, in the hopes of growing more heat tolerant varieties for the future.

Canola, sometimes called the Cinderella crop in reference to its success story in Canada, contributes more than $29 billion to the economy every year.

An abbreviation of the words Canada and oil, canola is a specific group of rapeseed varieties bred for cooking oil and animal feed. But before it made its way to North America, rapeseed was grown in Asia for thousands of years. Production in Canada only ramped up during the Second World War, to answer a critical shortage of lubricant oil for marine engines.

It wasn't until the 1960s that plant breeders in Saskatchewan and Manitoba developed varieties that produced quality, edible oil. After that, it was a quick ascent to success. 

But the industry took a hit when, in the summer of 2021, Western Canada was enveloped in heat and drought. Most of Canada's canola is grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Due to extreme heat and drought, production fell to the lowest level since 2007 and canola yields dropped by 40 per cent, according to a report by Statistics Canada. 

"2021 was ugly," said Dean Roberts, a small grains farmer who grows canola, wheat, barley, peas, lentils and flax in Coleville, in west central Saskatchewan.

Roberts, who spoke to CBC News while out for a drive scouting his fields, said last year the heat cut his canola yields in half, if not more.

"It was too hot and too dry for too long," said Roberts, who is a board member of the Canadian Canola Growers Association and a director of the board for SaskCanola.

"We can take a certain amount of heat and a certain amount of drought, but that was too much of everything."

Heat doesn't just hurt canola by drying out the soil. The cool-season crop also suffers if there are long stretches of high temperatures during the flowering season, which is typically late June and early July in Western Canada. 

Malcolm Morrison, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada who specializes in oilseeds, said heat during flowering harms canola's pollen vitality, as well as its ability to self-pollinate and, ultimately, fertilization. 

"Canola is not a tropical crop," Morrison said.