Oilseed rape “


High vigour is essential, so crops get away quickly.


rett points out. “We do have problems with


Charlock in particular and we’ve historically tried controlling it in the early winter but it’s obvious the crop has been knocked back by competition from the weed up to that point.


Early weed control


“The beauty of Clearfield is that you can go in mid to late Septem- ber with either Cleranda or Cler- avo and take the weed out before it has chance to grow so you don’t get the yield loss.”


New generation varieties


drive oilseed rape growth • Match variety to right time of year • Clearfield system helps control weeds • Plurax is looking good in the field


C


learfield varieties will have a growing role to play in the future as mod- ern hybrid varieties continue to close the yield gap between them and conventional oilseed rape, says Norfolk-based John Bar- rett, of farm management com- pany Sentry. As well as being a Sentry


Farms director, Mr Barrett has hands-on


responsibility for


1400ha of arable production managed from the company’s Hill House Farm, near Bungay. There are currently 282ha of oil- seed rape in the ground. “We’ve stuck with oilseed rape despite the problems many peo- ple have faced recently,” he says. “We’ve deliberately kept the ro- tations wide and that has defi- nitely helped keep flea beetle at bay but choosing the best varie- ty for individual applications is an essential element of getting the most out of the crop.”


Quick establishment A key part of this is choosing the right variety for the time of year,


38 ANGLIA FARMER • JULY 2018


Drilling rape after barley means getting the crop in the ground around 7-10 August, says John Barrett, of Sentry


he says. “If we’re aiming to get oil- seed rape in after barley, then we can usually drill around 7-10 Au- gust so we don’t want something that’s going to develop too quickly


“In contrast, if we’re going in


later after winter wheat, for ex- ample, then high vigour is essen- tial, so crops get away quickly and cleanly without being attacked by pests.”


Clearfield trumps all other va-


rietal characteristics, however, if there is a problem with broad- leaved or difficult to control weeds in the field to be sown, Mr Bar-


Using Clearfield varieties also means John can avoid dif- ficult pre-emergence herbicide treatments. “From an operational point of


view, not having to go in with a pre-emergence spray at a really busy time of year is a real benefit.” All the Clearfield oilseed rape being grown this year is DSV’s Phoenix CL and John is also tak- ing part in the company’s RDT (Rapid Development Trials) in- itiative to identify varieties for the future. “The fact that varieties like Phoenix CL are catching up yield- wise with the top performers on the RL can only be a good thing and shows what is possible with such varieties in the future.”


Trial results In UK trials, Phoenix CL has de- livered seed yields of 105% of con- trol with an oil content of 46.5% alongside benchmark disease re- sistance including a 6 for light leaf spot and a 6 for stem canker. Another DSV variety that has


caught John’s eye in his own RDT trials is Plurax CL. “Plurax CL was the stand out variety earlier in the year being by far the earliest to flower and consequently the first to finish flowering and is looking really good in the field in the run up to Summer. “Plus, I’m also aware of the growing threat of verticillium wilt to UK crops and I’m told tri- als in Europe, where this is a big- ger problem, have shown Plurax CL to have exceptional tolerance to this so it’s a variety we’ll be very keen to look at commercially in the future.”


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