What farmers want in a winter oilseed rape variety
A survey of UK farmers conducted by the Kleffmann Group has indicated that, beyond recommendation from an agronomist, the most important features of a winter oilseed rape variety are crop yield, closely followed by crop vigour and oil content.
The Kleffmann Group asked 401 rape farmers what, in their opinion, were the most important features of a winter rape variety, using a scoring system of 1 to 6 where 1 was the most important and 6 the least important.
Nationally yield came out top with a ranking of 1.63, closely followed by crop vigour which had a score of 2.82. Oil content was ranked third with a score of 3.55, disease resistance was fourth with a score of 3.85, with standing power closely following with 3.91. Winter hardiness was not seen as being particularly important to the UK grower as this scored 5.07 and was the least important feature that farmers listed.
"In the UK we are growing more winter oilseed rape than we have ever grown, in excess of 700,000 hectares, and with continuing buoyant prices of over £370/tonne this crop is expected to deliver particularly high gross margins, in excess of second wheats, other break or spring crops. Yield is one of the key components of gross margin calculations and so it is unsurprising that this topped the variety rankings across the UK. In fact it was the Number 1 criteria in all UK regions, with growers in the East Midlands and in the West Midlands giving it a 1.46 score, those in the Eastern Region a 1.6 score and those on the South East a 1.63 score (in a 1-6 scoring system)," says Karen Gralla, UK Project manager for the Kleffmann Group.
Karen notes that vigour consistently ranked second in all regions, with this feature being given more prominence in Scotland with a score of 2.62, in Yorkshire and Humberside with 2.48 and the East Midlands with 2.74 compared with the national figure of 2.82. "There was a tendency for crop vigour to be more important the further North you farmed."
Oil content was the next most important feature and was ranked third in the Eastern region, North East Region, South East region, South West and the West Midlands. Scottish farmers placed this feature at the bottom of their list of requirements however. "Oil content tends to be an intrinsic feature of a variety and is not easily manipulated, but it can add quite a bit to gross margins through premiums," says Roger Pratchett of IBR.
Disease resistance was ranked 5th nationally but ranked third in terms of importance by Yorkshire and Humberside and Scottish farmers. "Because there are a good selection of fungicides to choose from may well be the reason for this finding. Scottish farmers have historically had high disease pressure to deal with, hence their rating of 3.71 for disease resistance. Also farmers in the South West (3.58), West Midlands (3.55) and Yorkshire and Humberside (3.64) rated disease resistance as more important than the national picture," says Roger.
