Special Requirements and Standards

Application Due Date

Field inspection applications are due in the ACIA office 45 days after a crop has been planted.

Seed Classes

The Foundation Seed class is recognized for certification of varieties and of parent lines used in hybrid production.

The Certified Seed class is recognized for certification of and varieties and of commercial hybrids.

Mode of Pollination

These standards apply to the certification of both open and self pollinated canola and rapeseed varieties and hybrid varieties as specified.

Unit of Certification

The entire hybrid crossing field of an applicant must be eligible for certified seed production.

Seed Requirements

Breeder or Foundation seed must be used to establish all fields of hybrid production. The direction of the cross must remain the same unless data are provided indicating that no substantive differences result from reversal of the parentage.

Laboratory Verification of Seed Chemical Constituents

Applicants for final certification may be required to furnish evidence that seed harvested from approved fields meets the varietal description for content of erucic acid and glucosinolate or specialty oils.

General Field Standards

Land History for Variety and Hybrid Canola

Land planted for the production of Foundation Class seed shall not have grown canola or rapeseed, mustard or oilseed radish during the previous five (5) years.

Land planted for the production of Registered and Certified Class seed shall not have grown canola or rapeseed, mustard or oilseed radish during the previous three (3) years.

Land used for all classes of certified seed production must be free from volunteer contaminating plants.

Field Inspection

Variety production - at least one field inspection shall be conducted after the crop begins to flower.

Hybrid production - fields producing foundation or certified seed must be inspected when the crop is in the early flowering stage of the female parent. Additional inspections may be warranted.

Isolation

A field producing Certified seed shall be isolated from fields producing any other variety of canola or rapeseed or from fields producing a non-certified crop of the same variety as follows:

Foundation class production of varieties -

660 feet distant if the variety being certified is self-pollinated.

1320 feet distant if the variety being certified is cross-pollinated.

Certified class production of varieties - 

660 feet distant for both self- and cross-pollinated varieties.

Foundation and Certified class production of commercial hybrids -

2,640 feet distant to any other rapeseed or canola variety.

Fields producing different classes of the same variety are required to be ten (10) feet apart if self-pollinated and 50 feet apart if cross-pollinated.

Fields must be free of prohibited noxious weeds and restricted noxious weeds that are not separable during conditioning. All roadways, ditch banks and other areas within the specified isolation zones must be free of volunteer canola, rapeseed and species of wild or tame mustards that will cross with the seed crop being certified.

Specific Field Standards

The maximum permitted frequencies of off-type plants, plants of another variety and plants or weeds of other description that will cross with the variety being certified shall be:

Foundation class production of varieties - 1:5,000

Certified class production of varieties - 1:2,000

Foundation and Certified class production for hybrids - 

Off-types and other varieties - 1.5:10,000

Other Brassica crop species - 1:10,000

Hybridity

Percent hybrid seed in the production shall be at least 80% and shall be determined by a method of acceptable accuracy which can be reproduced by an official certification agency. The applicant for final certification must submit a declaration of the minimum percent hybridity and the method of determining it prior to obtaining final certification.