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16th International Rapeseed Congress
Sydney, Australia
21st – 27th September 2023
The International Rapeseed Congress (IRC) is the peak international conference for anything rapeseed related, and is held every four years. IRC2023 was jointly organised by GCIRC (Global Council for Innovation in Rapeseed and Canola) and AOF (Australian Oilseeds Federation), and included a pre-conference field tour in Wagga Wagga from 21st – 23rd September, followed by the conference itself in Sydney from 24th – 27th September. There were 530 delegates from
31 countries.
I had the pleasure to travel with my principal supervisor, Prof Yongju Huang, and my fellow PhD associate Evren Bingol. We first attended the field tour in Wagga Wagga, which is, appropriately, one of Australia’s leading centres of rapeseed breeding and research. The tour’s engaging itinerary included variety demonstrations from nine oilseed rape (or canola, as it is called in Australia) companies, ongoing trials for improving regional farming systems efficiency, and visiting a canola oil refinery. I primarily work on disease management, so this field tour was an exciting opportunity to learn more about canola as a crop, especially regarding Australia’s own cultural practices, and how they differ from the ones here in the UK.
We subsequently travelled to Canberra for a relaxing sight-seeing day, before joining the other congress participants for IRC’s stunning welcome reception abroad the Jackson Super Yacht, while touring Darling Harbour in Sydney at night.
The conference began with a few plenary talks summarising the state of the global rapeseed industry, before breaking up into subject-specific keynote sessions. The first session I joined was about blackleg, or phoma stem canker, a major disease in canola; however, subsequent sessions I attended were unrelated to disease as, similarly to the field tour, I endeavoured to engage in talks removed from my own research area, particularly ones about yield genetics, agronomy, and pest control. Two talks I would like to highlight are ‘Challenges facing canola growers – stand establishment and Plinazolin as a new solution’ by Shad Milligan, and ‘Carinata and Camelina, two minor Brassicaceae with great potential for the European bioeconomy’ by Ana Marjanovic Jeromela. I also attended the exquisite Nuseed IRC 2023 gala dinner at Luna Park in Sydney, where I got to interact with a number of congress members from different backgrounds.
I had the pleasure to give a talk about my own research, titled ‘Investigating Pyrenopeziza brassicae pathogen races to combat light leaf spot in winter oilseed rape’ as part of the keynote session ‘General Diseases’. This was a great opportunity to introduce several attendees to light leaf spot, a less studied oilseed rape disease, which nonetheless has the potential to cause severe yield losses, and is in pressing need of further studying.
Overall, this has been an invaluable experience, and I will remember this conference as one of the highlights of my PhD studentship. I am grateful to BSPP for their generous financial support, which allowed me to attend this event.
Laura Sapelli
University of Hertfordshire
