Information – Crop Mangement – Production
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Golden Linseed Trial 2003-2004
Introduction
In order to avoid the risk associated with growing a single cultivar of linseed (‘Hinau’) for processing in Canterbury and Nth Otago, three ‘golden’ linseed varieties were assessed for agronomic characteristics and yield late in the 2003/04 growing season at the Biological Husbandry Unit (BHU) Lincoln University, New Zealand.
Materials and Methods
Five replicates of three sowing rates (30, 60 and 90 kg/ha, 14 rows at 0.10m row spacings) of four linseed cultivars were sown in 5m long plots on 23 December 2003 using a cone seeder in this fully factorial experiment. The area sown was in spring wheat the previous season and had not had any fertiliser inputs since then.
Cultivars sown were as follows in the table below;
| Cultivar | TSW | Seed colour | Notes |
| ‘Hinau’ | 4.72g | Brown | NZ standard cv |
| Nugget | 5.57g | Yellow | New to NZ |
| Unknown (Chantelle) | 4.58g | Yellow | New to NZ |
| Unknown (Dakota) | 5.59g | Yellow | New to NZ |
Crop progress was monitored at approximately weekly intervals with flower period recorded and a photographic record kept. Harvesting occurred as each plot matured. This began on 19 April 2004. The area harvested was a 1.25m length of row from eight rows giving a total harvested area of 1.0m2. Whole aerial plants were harvested and dried over a 2 week period before mechanical threshing.
Results
Flowering
The date of flowering varied between different cultivars as did the flowering period.
| start |
30 |
60 |
90 |
All | |
| Chantelle |
62.0 |
62.0 |
62.0 |
62.0 |
c |
| Dakota |
49.0 |
49.0 |
49.0 |
49.0 |
a |
| Hinau |
59.6 |
62.0 |
60.8 |
60.8 |
b |
| Nugget |
60.8 |
60.8 |
60.8 |
60.8 |
b |
| All |
57.9 |
58.5 |
58.2 |
| finish |
30 |
60 |
90 |
All | |
| Chantelle |
86.0 |
87.4 |
88.8 |
87.4 |
c |
| Dakota |
73.4 |
72.0 |
72.0 |
72.5 |
a |
| Hinau |
86.0 |
86.0 |
93.0 |
88.3 |
c |
| Nugget |
84.6 |
83.2 |
81.8 |
83.2 |
b |
| All |
82.5 |
82.2 |
83.9 |
| length |
30 |
60 |
90 |
All | |
| Chantelle |
24.0 |
25.4 |
26.8 |
25.4 |
bc |
| Dakota |
24.4 |
23.0 |
23.0 |
23.5 |
ab |
| Hinau |
26.4 |
24.0 |
32.2 |
27.5 |
c |
| Nugget |
23.8 |
22.4 |
21.0 |
22.4 |
a |
| All |
24.7 |
23.7 |
25.8 |
In checking for correlations between yield and other agronomic factors it was found that yield was very closely correlated with the date that the treatment finished flowering. The figure below illustrates this. It should be noted that 5 replicates went into each of the data points on the graph.
The equation for the pink fitted regression line is;
“yield (g/m2)” = 586 – 4.79 x “mean flower finish day after planting”
where;
“mean flower finish day after planting” is the mean per treatment of the days after planting that greater that < 5% of plants were still flowering.
The adjusted R2 of this regression line is 79.8%, so this is a potential source of yield variation during this shoulder season period.
Harvest Date
The ranking of the cultivars in terms of harvest date is shown below.
| Cultivar |
Days after sowing |
Harvest date |
| Dakota |
118 |
19/04/2004 |
| Nugget |
127 |
28/04/2004 |
| Hinau |
139 |
10/05/2004 |
| Chantelle |
147 |
18/05/2004 |
Yield
Yield varied markedly between cultivars as illustrated in the table below.
| yield g/m^2 |
30 |
60 |
90 |
All | |
| Chantelle |
181.88 |
160.64 |
185.26 |
175.93 |
bc |
| Dakota |
238.62 |
247.1 |
234.91 |
240.21 |
a |
| Hinau |
177.42 |
142.7 |
138.8 |
152.97 |
c |
| Nugget |
196.67 |
167.83 |
209.34 |
191.28 |
b |
| All |
198.65 |
179.57 |
192.08 |
In terms of seed yield per seed planted the following relationship was observed.
| seed/seed |
30 |
60 |
90 |
All | LDS |
| Chantelle |
60.8 |
26.6 |
20.6 |
36 |
bc |
| Dakota |
79.4 |
41.2 |
26.2 |
48.9 |
a |
| Hinau |
59.2 |
23.6 |
15.2 |
32.7 |
c |
| Nugget |
65.6 |
27.8 |
23.2 |
38.9 |
b |
| All |
66.25 |
29.8 |
21.3 |
||
| LSD |
a |
b |
c |
It may be more meaningful to look at this relationship graphically in terms of the actual density of sowing as illustrated below.
Discussion
Dakota was the best performing linseed cultivar of the four trialled in the experiment. This was probably due to the short growing season available due to late planting. This hypothesis is supported by a tight relationship between last date of observed flowering and the yield (g/m2).
The ‘lack’ of effect from density is likely to be because the environment was the key factor limiting production. It should be noted that density appeared to have a greater effect with the shorter season cultivars, although this could be confounded by the larger size of the seed of the shorter season cultivars.
The lower yield observed with later flowering may be due to a temperature effect on pollination, ovary survival or seed development. None of these were investigated.
Conclusion
Dakota is an effective linseed cultivar agronomically for late season golden linseed production. Dakota may also be effective for early season planting and drought avoidance. These factors both have implications for continuity of supply to the manufacturer/processor.