First oilseed rape crops in the ground as area expected to fall

Demand

Beckii Gibbs, United Oilseeds seeds manager says recent drilling conditions may mean that the final OSR area could prove pleasantly surprising.

She says: “Most of the UK has seen some rainfall over the past few weeks which will help create a moist seedbed, enabling plants to grow away from pests. Broadly speaking, seedbed conditions are excellent and much better than in 2018 when they were extremely dry.”

Ms Gibbs says there has been a huge demand for Aurelia, which is a trait-loaded hybrid with TuVY resistance and also for Acacia, a conventional variety.

“There is also a lot of interest in HOLL, from new and existing growers, because of the guaranteed minimum premiums of £25.00/tonne that are available on buyback contracts.”

Yields

In Essex, Michael Scantlebury has finished drilling 22ha of Barbados conventional OSR and 26ha of Red Start forage OSR for seed, maintaining the same area as last year despite seeing a slight fall in yields.

He says: “Last year’s forage crop was probably at the lower end of our expectations. We only expect 2.2-2.5t/ha and we were at the 2t/ha mark, while Barbados yielded 3.65t/ha. Flea beetle wasn’t especially a problem for us and no crop received an insecticide all season.”

The no-till crop, which was companion cropped with buckwheat and clover, went in in good conditions and has mostly emerged within a week.

Mr Scantlebury adds: “We had more moisture at the time of drilling this year and things have moved on. However, slug pressure seems much higher this year, which is inevitable with there being more moisture, and we’ve already done one application of ferric phosphate slug pellets.”

Dry

However, on Peter Gilbert’s farm in Lincolnshire, conditions have been too dry to commence drilling.

He says: “We had a wet start to harvest like everyone else but the last 10 days have been very dry and the storms that went through Lincolnshire missed us.

“We’ve still got beans to cut and need to decide whether to cut the beans or drill the rape. The beans are the favourite because the rape wouldn’t grow anyway. If we’re going to grow it, we’ll have to drill it and then hope for moisture.”

Mr Gilbert plans to maintain the same area of oilseeds, growing Campus and Butterfly, which he says performed well last year, despite some flea beetle pressure.

He says: “We did about 4.1t/ha - we were lucky. We drilled 4kg/ha and ended up with the flea beetle eating three quarters of it, so we had a perfect plant. We drilled early so we had a good, big plant which went into winter a good size. There was a lot close by that did really badly.”

Alternative

Meanwhile, the area of winter linseed this season looks set to rise dramatically, as more growers look to alternative break crops says Andrew Probert, managing director of Premium Crops.

“If you look at what we have as far as autumn break crops there are really only three – wOSR, winter beans and winter linseed. The area of winter rape is going to decline and most farmers have enough beans on their farms.”

The risk of losing OSR crop to flea beetle has meant that 1-2 per cent of last year’s oilseed rape area will be converted into winter linseed, Mr Probert adds.