A 6.5 tonne to the hectare crop is considered exceptional for wheat for nearly all of Australia's grain growers.
In terms of canola, which the traditional rule of thumb says yields are around half of cereal crops, to grow such a crop would be considered science fiction.
However, that is exactly what has happened as part of the Grains Research and Development Corporation's (GRDC) Hyper Yielding Crops research project in trials at Millicent, South Australia.
The project, led by Field Applied Research (FAR) Australia is a four-year scheme spanning the high productivity regions of five states, and aims to push what are believed to be the economically attainable yield boundaries of wheat, barley and canola.
The crop used some seriously high levels of inputs, but at the other end, it made seriously high yields.
The biggest crop was Pioneer's 45Y28RR variety, clocking in at 6.49t/ha was grown at Millicent, in South Australia's south-east, on alkaline, peat-based soils.
The crop had an application of a whopping 225 kg a hectare of nitrogen (not urea), combined with the application of 6.7 t/ha animal manure, which was applied to replicate high fertility soils in a mixed legume rotation.
As part of the project, researchers are looking to identify the varieties that offer premium top end yields in good years, along with which cultivars are best suited to the different high rainfall zones across the country.
Rohan Brill of Brill Ag who leads the HYC canola research program said nitrogen management was a massive component of growing hyper yielding crops economically.
"An element of the 2021 canola research program was to establish a number of nitrogen nutrition trials," Mr Brill said.
"These trials not only assist with developing the most profitable N strategies for producing these high yields, they are also helping us to understand the key differences between winter and spring canola and determine the effects of N application on growth stages, yield, quality and profitability."
The variety also performed well in trials at Gnarwarre, near Geelong in Victoria, where the highest yield was 5.9t/ha on grey clay loam soils.
Interesting, the trial found yield responses to bagged N peaked at 150kg N/ha and similar yields were achieved between 150, 225, and 300kg/ha of applied N (urea).
FAR Australia managing director Nick Poole, who leads the HYC research project, was delighted with the outcomes from the trial.
"At the start of the season we set an aspirational goal of 5 t/ha," Mr Poole said.
"We are absolutely thrilled to have surpassed this target by almost 1.5 t/ha and to be delivering on the project's key objective of producing hyper yielding crops.
"We are looking forward to building on these numbers and delivering deliver some significant results as part of the extension phase of the HYC project in 2022."
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