A frighteningly good oilseed rape variety

A frighteningly good conventional winter oilseed rape variety is how the new variety Mambo is described by Neil Groom, Technical Director of Grainseed. “Es Mambo has the highest HGCA Agronomic Merit rating of 41.2, combined with a consistent high yield across a range of sites and years, and high oil content. Its excellent combined multi-gene disease resistance profile and its standing power really ups the agronomic rating,” he says.

Agronomist Martin Bartholomew of Bartholomews in West Sussex is overseeing a seed crop of Mambo and says “agronomically, it is a joy to look after! It was very vigorous both in the autumn and spring. You could really see this against a nearby crop of Trinity. It stands well and has stiff straw. I particularly like the fact that it appears to be disease-free, presumably due to its high disease ratings. We haven’t had to treat it with fungicides as many times as the more susceptible varieties.”

“We are being asked to take ICM on board, via NFU and the Voluntary Initiative, and that involves looking at integrating non-chemical ways of growing a crop. Growing a strongly disease resistant crop is a good alternative way of introducing an ICM element. It also fits well with Farm Assurance. If you have a choice between growing a crop which is susceptible to disease and one that has good resistance, I would go for the resistant variety every time,” says Martin.

Neil Groom thinks that growers will be impressed with Mambo’s high consistent yield. “Mambo had the top yield at six of Grainseed’s UK trials locations last year. It yielded 107% compared with the standards with a high oil content of 46%. But this wasn’t reflected in National Listing trials last year. We think this is because Official rape trials are all harvested at the same time, but varieties can vary by up to 21 days in their maturity. So harvesting on one date that may suit the average cannot be optimal for early or indeed later maturing varieties. We have found this for a number of years with Alienor which matures 10 days earlier than many others.”

Neil explains that some of the Grainseed trials were drilled on the same sites as the HGCA Recommended List trials but harvested at the right time for the earlier maturing varieties. “In Lincolnshire, Mambo yielded 6.34 t/ha compared with 4.97 t/ha for Excalibur, 5.35 t/ha for Vision, 5.49 t/ha for DK Cabernet and PR46W21 for 5.56 t/ha. In Nottinghamshire it yielded 5.69 t/ha, with DK Cabernet yielding 4.95 t/ha, PR46W21 5.10 t/ha, Excalibur 5.43 t/ha and Vision 5.57 t/ha. In Suffolk Mambo yielded 5.74 t/ha compared with Excalibur at 4.58 t/ha, PR46W21 at 4.74 t/ha, Vision 4.81 t/ha and DK Cabernet at 4.83 t/ha. So it yields really well against some of the popular varieties.”


In Euralis development trials last year Mambo was top yielder at 107.3%, compared with Vision at 103.1%, DK Cabernet at 100.6%, DK Exstorm with 100.6%, 98.9% for Excalibur and PR46W21 at 97.4%.

Its earliness to harvest is a real practical advantage for a rape variety, as growers can get the crop harvested and in the barn well before the later maturing ones. “Mambo isn’t as early as Alienor but is around one week earlier than Cabernet. As we start the 2015 harvest, the idea of spreading harvests and having more time to treat seedbeds with glyphosate and for cultivating the land before drilling next year’s wheat will have a strong appeal to growers,” says Neil.

Mambo is a conventional low biomass winter rape variety. “It has exceptional autumn vigour which, without the availability of neonicotinoid seed treatments this coming autumn, is absolutely essential. This vigour can help the crop grow away from damaging flea beetle attack. It also has excellent standing power with an 8 rating for stem stiffness and a 9 for resistance to lodging.”

Importantly it has multigene resistance to stem canker with an excellent resistance rating of 7.8, a high resistance rating to Light Leaf spot of 6.4 and good resistance to Verticillium. “Mambo is one of the highest rated oilseed rapes for Phoma stem canker, reducing pressure on early autumn fungicide sprays. It is concerning that many popular varieties have very low Phoma ratings. Each HGCA rating is worth at least £20/ha to growers so Mambo’s rating could be valued at over £100/ha extra above PR46W21 or Marathon (rated at a worrying 3 for Phoma) or £80/ha above Troy, Incentive, Charger or Excalibur (with just 4 rating for Phoma),” calculates Mr Groom.

Martin Bartholomew agrees with this and says that field inspection of the seed crop by NIAB resulted in the conclusion that Mambo looked to have high potential. “It looks to be a very useful variety which we will consider recommending to our customers. I think there is an increasing need for growing strongly disease resistant varieties these days.”