New Oilseed Should Minimise Risks And Boost Margins

That’s the view of Frontier’s southern seed manager, Peter James, who’s suggesting that growers need to look to even newer types; varieties such as Epure, which is being fast-tracked for release this autumn, to provide the consistency of performance now lacking on-farm.

“If you look at Recommended List trials, the variations in yield from year to year and trial to trial are often 15-20% or more for any given variety.  Indeed for one previous on farm favourite they are now as high as 50%,” he says.

“So, as a result, it should come as no surprise that when these same varieties are taken out onto farm, in more challenging conditions, that they commonly produce variable yields.”

This is why Mr James suggests growers dig back down behind the data and look at consistency of performance in trial as a key selection criteria alongside headline yields.

Next step is to consider oil content and its contribution to gross output.  Selecting a variety with a 45.5% oil content provides an oil bonus worth £652 for every lorry load delivered to the crusher.  “That’s well over double the return from a variety with an oil percentage of 42-43%,” he points out.

Once happy with the margin potential of the variety, Peter James suggests growers look at its vigour, straw characteristics and disease resistance. 

By and large vigour is not an issue – there’s little to choose between varieties – and data from British Society of Plant Breeding (BSPB) trials, suggests that hybrids are no more vigorous than their in-bred counterparts.

Stem strength though is a key.  With poor stem stiffness and lodging at flowering, you will restrict pollination.  And, while lodging at harvest is an issue, it is less critical.

“You do want some form of knitting together of the canopy to protect the crop from seed losses.  So in this respect, select varieties with 7 or 8 ratings for stem stiffness and lodging.”

While the marketeers have made much of low bio-mass – largely on the basis of crop height – this does little to take into account the bulk of the crop - for which scant data exists.  Height can also vary significantly between sites and seasons for the same variety, he points out.

However, with diseases more difficult to control it is important to invest in a variety with minimum 6-ratings for both stem canker and light leaf spot.

Taking these characteristics into consideration, Epure has been remarkable consistent across the UK in NL trials with little variation in performance. 

“It’s never yielded under 100% of control is trials to date and its gross output is 3% higher than the current top UK conventional variety,” says Mr James.

“Combine this with an 8 and a 7-rating for resistance to lodging and stem stiffness respectively and double-7s for light leaf spot and stem canker and it has the characteristics to provide more consistent performances across the UK,” he says.

KWS UK’s oilseed rape manager, Julie Goult suggests that with an oil content of 45.5% and yield over controls of 106%, Epure has the potential to improve on farm margins over Castille by over £100/ha.  

“It will also produce returns to match those of the best yielding hybrids,” she says. “And, being relatively late to harvest and maturity, Epure could also suit earlier sowings and still spread the grower workload.”

Ms Goult says that the company should produce enough seed for Epure to take a 5% market share this autumn.