13. The parent organism is Brassica napus L. ssp. oleifera, which is commonly known as canola, rapeseed or oilseed rape. The GM canola lines that are the parents of the GMOs proposed for release are discussed in Section 5 below.

14. Canola is exotic to Australia and grown as an agricultural crop mainly in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. Canola has been grown in Australia since the 1960s primarily for its seeds, which yield from 35% to over 45% oil. Further information about the parent organism is contained in a reference document, The Biology of Brassica napus L. (canola), that was produced to inform the risk assessment process for licence applications involving GM canola plants (OGTR 2011).

4.1 Toxicity of non-GM canola

15. Canola seeds are used to produce two major products, canola oil and meal, but only the oil is used in human food. B. napus contains two natural toxicants in the seed: erucic acid and glucosinolates. The presence of high levels of erucic acid in traditional rapeseed oil has been associated with detrimental effects in experimental animals. Glucosinolates are located in the seed meal, which is used exclusively as livestock feed. The products of glucosinolate hydrolysis have negative effects on animal production (OECD 2001).

16. The term canola refers to varieties that meet specific standards on the levels of erucic acid and glucosinolates. Canola must contain less than 2% erucic acid in the oil and less than 30 ́moles g-1 of glucosinolates in the meal. Australian canola varieties typically contain levels well below the current standards (OGTR 2011).

4.2 Weediness of non-GM canola

4.2.1 Nature of weediness

17. Weeds are plants that spread and persist outside their natural geographic range or intended growing areas such as farms or gardens and give rise to negative impacts for people or the environment.

18. Negative impacts from weeds may be associated with competitiveness, rambling or climbing growth, toxicity, production of spines, thorns or burrs, or parasitism. The spread and persistence of weeds is a measure of their potential invasiveness, which may give rise to negative impacts such as reduced establishment of desired organisms, reduced quality of products or services obtained from the land use, reduced access to land, toxicity or increased ill-health of people or other desired organisms and increased degradation of the landscape or ecosystems (National Weed Prioritisation Working Group 2006).

19. The spread and persistence (invasiveness), is determined by complex interactions between a plant and its environment (including availability of water, nutrients and light). A number of measurable properties of plants that may influence spread and persistence include the ability to establish among existing plants, reproductive ability such as time to seeding, amount of seed set and ability for vegetative spread, mode of dispersal, likelihood of long-distance dispersal and tolerance to existing weed management practices (National Weed Prioritisation Working Group 2006).

4.2.2 Weed risk status of canola

20. Baseline information on the characteristics of weeds in general, and the factors limiting the spread and persistence of non-GM canola plants in particular, is given in The Biology of Brassica napus L. (canola) (OGTR 2011).

21. Canola is considered a major weed in agricultural ecosystems in Australia (Groves et al. 2003). Surveys have shown that canola occurs as a volunteer weed in up to 10% of cereal crops in southern Australia (Lemerle et al. 1996) and similar levels have been reported in Canadian cereal crops (Thomas et al. 1998; Leeson et al. 2005). Canola also occurs as a weed in cropping regions in the USA. (Weed Science Society of America 1992), and it occurs in disturbed habitats along roadsides, railway lines, field margins and waste lands in all countries where it is grown (Norton 2002; Crawley & Brown 2004). However, canola is not considered a significant weed, nor invasive of natural undisturbed habitats in Australia (Dignam 2001; Norton 2002), Canada (Canadian Food Inspection Agency 1994; Warwick et al. 1999; Beckie et al. 2001) or the UK (Crawley et al. 2001).

22. The Australian/New Zealand Standards HB 294:2006 National Post-Border Weed Risk Management Protocol rates the weed risk potential of plants according to properties that strongly correlate with weediness (Virtue et al. 2008). These properties relate to invasiveness, impacts and potential distribution. The weed risk potential of canola has been assessed using methodology based on the National Post-Border Weed Risk Management Protocol (see Appendix 1, OGTR 2011). In summary, canola is considered to:
    • have low ability to establish amongst existing plants
    • have low tolerance to average weed management practices
    • have short time to seeding
    • have high annual seed production
    • not reproduce by vegetative means
    • be unlikely to occasional long distance spread by natural means
    • be commonly spread long distance by people
    • have limited ability to reduce establishment or yield of desired vegetation
    • have low ability to reduce the quality or characteristics of products, diversity or services available from the land use
    • have no potential to restrict the physical movement of people, animals, vehicles, machinery and/or water
    • have low potential to negatively affect the health of animals and/or people
    • have minor or no effect on degradation of the landscape or ecosystems.

23. This is consistent with previous assessments of canola in Australia described above and provides a baseline for the assessment of GM canola.