News

Continuing to Perform

HO,LL growing has become a permanent part of John Lucas’ rotation at Welbourn Farm between Lincoln and Grantham. Now into his third full commercial season with the crop, John finds Splendor continues to yield on a par with the Castille he grows as the main variety in his 240 ha combinable crop rotation.

One of the first UK growers to take advantage of the Vistive™ opportunity commercially, he harvested 16 ha of Splendor in 2006 and 19 ha last summer with some 20 ha  currently in the ground.

Although his first crop only averaged 2.5 t/ha, it performed no worse than his double lows under what he considers to have been a particularly acute growing challenge. With August rather than early September drilling and a kinder OSR season overall, it produced a far more satisfying 3.4 t/ha in 2007 – and at fully 44% oil.

“We’re well-pleased with Splendor so far,” insists John Lucas. “It’s certainly fulfilled the promise we originally saw when we grew a 1 ha strip of the variety in field-scale trials in 2004/5. As well as matching Castille in output, it’s been just as easy to manage under our fairly simple, relatively low input system.

“To start with we chose a field that hadn’t had rape for five years but subsequently we cut the initial rotational gap to four years and we haven’t had any problems with volunteers,” he points out. “So far, all our grain has met the required oil specification to deliver the full HO,LL premium, earning us a significantly better margin than conventional double lows. And this season’s crop will be going into the ground that grew Splendor in 2005/6 in the dedicated wheat/wheat/HO,LL rotation we’ve established across a 60 ha block of cropping, so any volunteer concerns should be well behind us.”

As well as ensuring good initial volunteer control, John Lucas has taken particular care with seed identification, machinery hygiene and crop storage to maintain the best possible identity preservation. He stresses he hasn’t found this extra hassle a problem in any way. Especially so, since most of his conventional rape is marketed within a month of combining.

“I’m convinced our future lies in growing more and more crops for specific markets rather than merely as commodities,” he says. “And if Vistive™ food oils continue to offer the sort of guaranteed premiums we’ve received for our HO,LL so far, I’ve no doubt speciality OSR will be a good long-term bet for us.”