Arable Eastern growers complete
challenging rape harvest • Reasonable yields despite tough season • Drought tolerance helped crops hang on • Turnip Yellow Virus aff ects some fi elds
have made for a challenging oil- seed rape harvest – with heat, drought and diffi cult crop condi- tions revealing the ability of dif- ferent varieties to cope with ‘abi- otic’ stress.
A
“It’s been an incredibly diffi cult year for oilseed rape growers with the late, cold spring affecting fl owering and now weeks of low rainfall and high sunshine forcing an early harvest for many,” says Beckii Gibbs of United Oil- seeds.
“The fi rst part of the year tested varieties’ resilience and abil- ity to recover quick- ly from cold conditions, but the second part has been all about drought tolerance and the effectiveness of roots in scavenging soil moisture to keep plants growing.”
Whilst those forced into early harvest have recorded relatively lower yields than normal, growers able to hang on have not done too badly, says Ms Gibbs.
Crop Performance
“Early reports showed yields down to 2.5-4.5t/ha and for many mois-
The hot dry summer followed an unusually wet and cold spring. Paul Hartley (inset) says rape varierty Dariot was a stand-out performer
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8 ANGLIA FARMER • AUGUST 2018
fter the cold and wet win- ter and spring, searing summer temperatures
ture contents lower than 6.0% have been a real problem, but many growers have been able to harvest at the usual time with few problems.”
Drought tolerance has been a key factor with varieties like deep-rooted Dariot coping much better
than others.
Paul Hartley of Pop- lar Farm, near Wis- bech, says it stood out against other varie- ties with notice-
ably higher yields and quality in Cambridgeshire. “It’s not been a great year all told and we’ve had a lot of pigeon damage to add to the cold winter and hot summer, but we managed to harvest our Dariot in the sec- ond week of July and it yielded over 5.0t/ha at an oil content of around 45.6%.
“Moisture content was over 7.5% so we have not suffered with the moisture problems many have experienced either.” In Suffolk, Ben Hadingham managed to fi nish his oilseed rape harvest by mid-July at Retreat Farms, Flixton. Crops seemed to hang around at 12% moisture con- tent for a long time, despite ap-
pearing dead, but then they quick- ly started to drop, he says. “That said, we’ve managed to get everything in at about 8% moisture. Dariot looked pretty good and yielded up to 4.5t/ha but in what has been a below av- erage year, Sparrow was the real star with a yield reaching 4.7t/ha.” In trials across Europe in dry conditions, Dariot has also yield- ed the best of 14 popular varie- ties achieving yields of over 5.1t/ha against an average for the group of 4.5t/ha.
There are some indications that Turnip Yellow Virus (TuYV) may have affected UK crops this year more than previously, says Michael Farr of oilseed rape spe- cialists DSV.
“Certainly conditions have been suitable for infected aphids to carry the virus and there is grow- ing concern about this with regard to the reduced amount of insecti- cides now being used.
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