Committee chair says a nearly 10% yield jump in mustard is encouraging for growers, but warns GM mustard contamination and federal research cuts could create long-term challenges for Prairie oilseeds.
Big yield gains, high-stakes market risks and mounting concerns over federal research cuts dominated flax and mustard discussions at today’s Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC) meetings in Banff, Alta.
“We’re seeing a real leap forward in mustard,” said Ken Jackle, chair of the Prairie Recommending Committee for Oilseeds (PRCO), pointing to a new condiment mustard line expected to go forward this year. “It’s quite a yield bump. It’ll have quite a yield advantage over the existing checks.”
How big a jump? Almost 10%, he said.
For mustard growers, that kind of jump matters. Yield improvements in recent years have been steady, and Jackle credited Dr. Bifang Cheng’s breeding program at AAFC Saskatoon for keeping progress moving.
“It’s good to see these increases in their yield potential that she’s managed to produce in the last couple of years,” he said. “That’s a very positive thing for our mustard growers.”
GM Mustard Raises Red Flags
But amid the optimism, a looming issue could reshape the sector.
PRCO and industry representatives are wrestling with the potential approval of a Brassica juncea line containing a genetically modified construct called InVigor Gold from BASF — a development Jackle says carries enormous market risk.
“What we’re trying to do is find a methodology by which that genetically modified canola-quality mustard is prevented from entering into the market,” he said. “Personally, it just mirrors the disaster that we had with Triffid in flax.”
The memory of 2009 still looms large. When the deregistered GM flax variety Triffid was detected in shipments to Europe, export markets shut down almost overnight. The repercussions lingered for years.
“We in the flax program — even in our market and our producers — were still recovering from that 15 years later,” Jackle said. “Some of our markets were lost permanently because of that.”
Saskatchewan produces the bulk of Canada’s mustard, much of which is exported to Europe for processing. Those customers expect non-GM product. Even low-level contamination could trigger serious trade consequences, Jackle says.
“If the modified GM construct gets into the mustard chain, it could easily result in market closure in the same way that it affected flax,” Jackle said.
The proposed GM canola-quality mustard from BASF — already being grown in the United States — is designed for drier production areas where canola isn’t commonly grown. But Jackle questions whether the potential benefits justify the risk.
“The economic benefit of growing that particular line in that area would be far eclipsed by the disaster to the economy, to the production, to our market by its contamination into the mustard market,” he said. “The benefits are so minimal compared to the amount of damage that could be done that it’s almost difficult to understand how and why it should be released in the first place.”
PRCO is now engaged in ongoing discussions with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Variety Registration Office to determine who bears responsibility for preventing contamination.
He expects those conversations to intensify in the months ahead.
Research Cuts Add Uncertainty
Complicating matters further are Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) budget cuts and site closures, which were a major topic during PRCO’s executive meeting in Banff today.
“We certainly had that discussion,” Jackle said.
“The closure of those research sites and the infrastructure that would be included with them is not something that in a couple years, if the budget is restored, you can just start up again. It’s not like an office job. It’s just not that simple.”
While 2026 testing is expected to proceed largely unchanged, the longer-term outlook is uncertain.
“Certainly there will be adaptations and adjustments made in the way we test our lines in the co-op and in other trials,” Jackle said. “But after that, it’s going to be different.”
The co-operative testing system allows candidate lines to be evaluated across multiple soil types and environmental conditions — data that’s critical for accurate performance predictions.
“If you limit that, then you can’t make predictions on how something’s going to produce in that area if you don’t have data from that area,” he said.
Private research firms may help fill some gaps, particularly in places like Indian Head, but Jackle warns that public research capacity has already been reduced over the past decade.
A Pause on Flax
While mustard dominates this year’s headlines, PRCO is taking a more measured approach on flax.
“For flax this year, we are not putting any lines forward,” Jackle said.
The committee advanced new flax varieties in each of the past two years and is now waiting for market uptake.
“What we’re waiting for now is market uptake on the lines that we’ve recently released,” he said.
One candidate line showed promise in co-op testing this season, but PRCO opted to hold it back for another year of data.
“We’re going to test it for a third year to see whether or not it’ll stand up to the lines that are right behind it,” Jackle said.
All flax breeding work continues at the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon, but like mustard, the crop depends heavily on the Prairie-wide co-operative testing network to prove performance across environments.
