'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 GENE FLOW BETWEEN HERBICIDE RESISTANT CANOLA (BRASSICA NAPUS l.) AND A RELATED WEED SPECIES D.A. ERICKSON, S.L. KUNZLI, J. BROWN Department of Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-2339, USA

Weed control is problematic for canola growers, and in response, researchers have developed herbicide resistant cultivars, using both conventional breeding and recombinant DNA techniques. Among the concerns of herbicide resistant canola is the potential transfer of resistant genes to other canola crops and to related weed species. This study investigates potential risks associated with large-scale commercialization of herbicide resistant canola by examining gene transfer between canola and field mustard (a closely related local weed species), and the viability of these hybrids.  A total of 4.5% of the mustard plants screened showed resistance to either Roundup® or Raptor®. Almost all hybrids found to date have shown some degree of cross compatibility with other hybrids, suggesting that multiple herbicide resistant hybrids would be a possibility.