Look at winter oilseed rape as a managed crop

Yorkshire grower Clifford Spencer believes they should realise that it is no longer just a break crop and treat it as a managed crop.

"Oilseed rape now has the profit potential to match cereals," said Mr Spencer, of Springdale Farm, Rudston, near Driffield. "While cereal prices remain weak at the £60/t mark, oilseed crushing prices continue to look strong at £134/t, leaving gross margin for both crops close to £450/ha.

"Furthermore, oilseed rape arable aid is now fixed at the same rate as cereals and set-aside."

He said they should also take into account that, after 30 years of intensive selection, they now had a portfolio of oilseed rape varieties with huge yield potential. The UK, with its maritime climate, was also in one of the most suitable growing regions of the world to maximize the crop's performance.

There were some big marketing opportunities to be grasped in mainland Europe where human consumption of rape seed oil was gaining momentum.

Growers should start looking at the whole gambit in the same way they had approached cereals over the past two to three decades, he said.

Mr Spencer, whose farm is co-host with Syngenta Seeds to a 68ha commercial field scale trial, said extreme care should be taken over variety choice, seed bed preparation and agronomic input.

The field scale trials are designed to determine the optimum targeted combination of a range of inputs to achieve best margins among the UK's premier league of hybrid rape varieties: Royal, Spirit, Borneo, Nelson and Toccata.

The initiative follows last year's field scale trial at Springdale which focused on Royal, the UK's number one, fully-restored hybrid on the Recommended List with a massive 110pc seed yield, and provided growers with firm guidelines for optimal crop performance.

"We arrived at the surprising conclusion that Royal required a moderate level of inputs," said Mr Spencer. "Optimum nitrogen application was 170kgN/ha and sulphur proved to be essential to achieve the highest yield - an exceptional 5.28t/ha giving a gross return in excess of £750/ha and the highest net margin over input costs of more than £500/ha, excluding area aid."

The five premier league hybrid varieties were drilled in to silty clay loam (Andover series) in 18-inch rows in early September. The autumn programme across the varieties included applications of a pre-emergence herbicide, a fungicide, a pesticide for flea beetle control and standard fertilizer at 43kg N/ha. Slug pellets were applied regularly over the winter months.

The spring input programme involved splitting each of the five varieties into plots, each with a different rate of nitrogen: 120kg/ha, 170kg/ha and 220kg/ha. Each variety was sub-divided and various rates of sulphur applied at different timings. As far as spring fungicides were concerned, the plots were sub-divided and an application made to each variety at either full or half rate, or nil as a control.

"The Springdale trial site is fairly average in terms of soil type and climate and it is in the centre of a major oilseed rape growing area," said Syngenta Seeds' Nigel Padbury. "We're focusing on a portfolio of very high yielding varieties and, once again, we intend to use the outcome to inform specialist growers of our management regime, which is within the budget of any UK farmer, and in turn enable them to make agronomic decisions to fine tune inputs, minimise spend and ultimately maximise output."