The sea of yellow flowers sways lightly in the gentle breeze.
The bright yellow swathe across the paddock is a sharp contrast to the flat
green landscape that surrounds it, stretching out to the distant Grampians.

These millions of yellow flowers in a Wimmera paddock seem tranquil and
innocent.

In fact, they are one of the most controversial crops in Australian
agriculture ? genetically modified canola.

It is a crop that is quickly coming to life.

This year, for the first time, farmers in Victoria and NSW have been allowed
to grow GM canola on a commercial scale.

More than 100 have sown GM canola on a total of about 10,000 hectares.

Andrew Weidemann is one of those embracing GM canola.

He is growing 10 different canola varieties on his farm at Rupanyup ? five
each of GM and non-GM.

So far the GM crop has exceeded his expectations.

Much of his 92 hectares of GM canola is now in flower and is on track for
harvest in about 11 weeks.

Mr Weidemann has noticed distinct advantages to GM canola.

It germinates earlier, grows with more vigour than does the non-GM canola
and, with its large, robust leaves, it out-competes weeds.

It requires one spraying of herbicide, compared with three for non-GM
canola.

The herbicide it requires is claimed not to linger in the paddock or affect
what is planted in the paddock next season, a problem that is sometimes
associated with traditional non-GM varieties.

Mr Weidemann now hopes a third advantage, which he says has been noted in
trials, comes to the fore.

GM canola has been found to produce a yield 20pc greater than that of non-GM
canola.

"It's performed admirably.

"It's certainly showing what we'd known before, that it's got very good
weed-control capabilities," he said.

"Given the amount of rainfall that we've had, it's really excelled to this
point.

"And we hope that if we get good finishing rains, that we'll grow a fairly
handy sort of a crop."

Mr Weidemann hopes that his GM crop will produce about 2.5 tonnes of seed
per hectare.

That would be 20pc more productive than are the non-GM varieties.

To allow a detailed comparison of the 10 canola varieties on his farm, all
were planted in the same paddock on the same day in early May, in distinct
plots.

Yesterday about 20 farmers from South Australia visited Mr Weidemann's farm
to inspect the GM canola.

South Australian law prohibits commercial production of GM canola.

Mr Weidemann said the GM canola puts Victoria on a competitive footing with
other nations that have similar technology.

"It also means that we're able to reduce the impact of the amount of
herbicide that we're using in our farming operation," he said.


www.checkbiotech.org