THE grain harvesting season in northern Victoria might be done and dusted, with yields slashed by below-average rain, but a Bridgewater farmer claims his genetically modified canola has outperformed traditional varieties.Farmer Andrew Broad told The Advertiser that even though the year had been extremely challenging, the genetically modified canola variety GT61 had yielded 0.6 tonne per hectare and Summit, a traditional non-GM variety, had yielded 0.2 tonne per hectare.He said growing the GT61 variety had returned a profit and the Summit had not.Mr Broad said while it was still early days, he had observed that the GT61, which was Roundup Ready and low rainfall tolerant, seemed to want to grow with only limited moisture available.“The bottom line was that we were paid the same for our GM canola and conventional canola; however, we used less chemical on the GM.”Mr Broad said weeds had been a greater problem in the Summit compared with the area sown to GT61. The crops were grown in close proximity so the paddocks experienced the same weather conditions prior to and after sowing.Mr Broad has been a strong advocate for the use of the latest technological advances.“The use of biotechnology will play a significant role if Australia is to continue to be a major player in the global grains market,” he said.Mr Broad said declining yields and profitability from Australian canola had become a significant issue.“On our farm, the inclusion of canola within our wheat rotation has assisted greatly in increasing yields; however, the cost of growing canola, combined with late seasonal breaks, has forced a reduction in our area sown.“This is in contrast to the Canadian experience, where the annual area seeded to canola has increased from five million hectares to six million hectares in 2007 and 95 per cent of Canadian canola is non-conventional.“Overwhelmingly, Canadian growers are choosing GM canola.“In fact, leading farmers I have spoken to were very happy with the technology from both environmental (reduced chemical quantities and toxicity) and financial perspectives.“GM technology does have a financial cost, but the greatest influence on canola yield is the length of growing season and available moisture as we saw in the past season.”