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Speciality Oilseed Rape Takes Off - Farmers Guardian Arable Focus May 16 – HO,LL

Two seasons of successful commercial growing in the UK and burgeoning demand from food companies across Europe mean speciality High Oleic, Low Linolenic (HO,LL) winter oilseed rape production is poised to expand in a major way over the coming few years.

From an initial 750 ha in 2006, the area of Vistive™ HO,LL oilseed rape harvested grew to around 4000 ha in 2007. More than 250 growers currently have some 9,000 ha of the speciality crop in the ground on contracts delivering a fixed premium of £44/tonne. And UK crushers are currently looking to contract up to 30,000 ha for harvest 2009 at even more attractive premiums.

Such is the demand for the healthy oil which allows levels of harmful trans-fats in a wide variety of foods to be minimised while maintaining the highest possible levels of poly-unsaturates, indeed, that specialists ultimately see an annual market for 200,000 ha of HO,LL.

Driving this is the realisation that trans-fats arising from the hydrogenation of unsaturated vegetable oils to improve their food processing value actually carry greater health risks than the saturated fats they were designed to replace, explains Geoff Hall of the UK’s leading oilseed rape breeder, Dekalb.

“This has led major food manufacturers and retailers across North America and Europe to commit themselves to reducing or eliminating trans-fats from their products. So we are seeing an attractive and rapidly growing market for speciality OSR crops bred to deliver the required unsaturated oil quality naturally without hydrogenation or costly alternative processing.

“In the first year of their commercial availability in the USA in 2005, for instance, around 100,000 acres of Vistive™ low-linolenic soyabeans were grown on contract in a single state.  This increased to 700,000 acres in six states the following year, with fully 1.6 million acres harvested across 10 states in 2007.

“Sunflower oil delivers similar trans-fat reducing benefits for European food manufacturers,” notes Geoff Hall. “But supplies are very limited and always likely to remain so. What’s more, renewed Food Standards Agency pressure on reducing saturated fats is making the palm oil alternative far less attractive to the food industry.

“The fact that the UK has the most extensive Vistive™ growing experience in Europe, coupled with our proven ability to produce and deliver quality, identity-preserved crops, means that we  are better placed than almost any other country to take advantage of the developing low linolenic food oil market  this side of the Atlantic.”

Growing HO,LL Experience

The experience of the past two years shows UK growers are well able to achieve the linolenic acid levels of less than 4% essential to the market and the premiums it offers, despite the threat posed by ‘double low’ volunteers in particular.  Indeed, to date not one of the Vistive™ crops delivered to ADM has failed to earn the full HO,LL premium.

The availability of land that hasn’t grown OSR for a good four years, if ever, has been a major boon in this respect in the West Midlands, where Masstock agronomist, Peter Jones currently has 10 growers with over 500 ha of the original Vistive™ HO,LL variety, Splendor in the ground.

Most of this land has come out of the traditional sugar beet rotation, following the closure of both British Sugar’s Kidderminster and Atcham factories. Although hardly ideal for oilseed rape, the 300 ha of light sandy ground his growers put into HO,LL last season delivered very satisfactory yields of 3.2-3.7 t/ha, all of which made the premium-earning spec.

“Splendor has proved the perfect solution for our growers with the demise of sugar beet,”
reports Peter Jones. “The previous rotation with spring barley and winter barley meant they had few worries over volunteers. It also gave them the window to get the crop in before the end of August. And the additional organic matter and structure it has put into the soil has allowed them to introduce wheat into the rotation for the first time ever.

“Despite HGCA trial figures suggesting a substantial yield disadvantage to conventional ‘double lows’, we’ve been well-pleased with the variety’s performance. Especially so with the lightness of the ground, our growers’ very limited OSR-growing experience, and the fact that we only use around 120 units of N/acre in total.

“I can safely say the crops have yielded as well as any oilseed rape on this sort of land while proving a far better cereals break than sugar beet ever was.”

Peter Jones attributes much of his growers’ success with HO,LL  to the lessons learned from extensive Masstock SMART Farm field scale experience with the crop across the country.

More than anything else, work with Splendor – and through the Best of British Oilseeds Initiative with OSR in general – has reinforced the critical importance of doing everything possible to ensure good establishment and early root development.

Following discing immediately after the previous barley harvest to level the ground, the West Midlands crops have established well from late-August sowing with a single pass subsoiler/ seeder/roller combination. They have been assisted by 20 units/acre of seedbed N and 1 litre/ha of Zoom foliar feed (primarily boron, magnesium, manganese and molybdenum) with each of the two pre-Christmas phoma sprays. This has allowed them to overwinter well and make the most of the variety’s tremendous spring vigour.

“As a slow early developer, Splendor must go in before September,” stresses Peter Jones. “Like all OSRs it needs a little care and attention to ensure the best establishment. But once it gets going there’s no stopping it. This has been particularly obvious after the horrendous pigeon problems of the past winter. Although some particularly vulnerable areas were virtually razed to the ground, following their early N in late February they’ve grown back to leave very even crops from flowering. In fact, it’s difficult to tell most of our Splendor crops apart from the excellent Excalibur estabished from later drilling.

“Their low biomass type has made the crops easy to grow without lodging too,” he points out. “And they’ve direct combined particularly well following Roundup treatment.

“As well as our agronomic support, growers have found the Vistive™ pre-movement quality testing of crops gives them valuable confidence that the critical oil spec will be met well in advance of delivery to crush. We haven’t had any problems ourselves. But this is especially reassuring where there may be concerns over volunteer levels, crop identification or separation in storage.”

Once HO,LL growing is established in the rotation, volunteers cease to be an issue because they all have the right oil profile anyway. However, Peter Jones remains concerned over the danger of volunteers in the initial crop if ‘double lows’ or HEAR have been grown within the past four years.  In this context, he urges growers to be particularly wary where previous OSR crops have either lodged badly or been ploughed down after harvest, stressing that careful field selection and agronomy remain paramount when getting into the speciality crop.

“To my mind HO,LL has to be the first choice for anyone wanting to move away from sugar beet,” he recommends. “A £44/tonne premium this year and even higher rewards for harvest 2009 should more than make up for any possible yield disadvantage against conventional rape to deliver very handsome returns and margins. They are certainly attractive compared with the current value of sugar beet against the £21/tonne needed just to break even.

“Then there’s plenty of land in mixed arable/grassland rotations to provide a perfect way into HO,LL. And, although the prospect of volunteers worries me I have to say many of the initial crops my colleagues have grown in other parts of the country haven’t suffered from not being on virgin OSR ground. So it’s perfectly possible to do given sufficient care and attention.

“While linolenic acid levels can theoretically be influenced by pollen from other crops grown nearby, we haven’t found this presents any real problem in practice, Peter Jones continues. “Keeping HO,LL growing in blocks does make effective hygiene at drilling and harvesting very much simpler and the whole business easier to manage, though, so we always look to do this wherever possible. We also stress the importance of careful identification and identity preservation after harvest. After all, we’re talking about a valuable crop that is well worth taking care of.”

Peter Jones accepts it is still early days yet for HO,LL in the UK. Even so he sees huge mileage in the crop, providing the fixed premiums remain attractive enough and closed loop contracts continue to ensure a guaranteed market for committed growers.

Splendor has proved well-suited to his growers to date and he would take a lot of persuading to move away from the variety in many cases. However, he considers the progression of new Vistive™ varieties offering greater drilling flexibility, yield potential and oil contents will be extremely valuable in taking the crop forward in the coming few years. He is equally enthusiastic about the development of oilseed rape types with other specialist oil profiles designed to meet specific added-value markets.

“Basic commodity prices may be attractive today and the immediate market prospects may look better than they have for many years” he argues. “But I remain convinced that the best future for many growers lies in securing markets that offer worthwhile rewards for quality and producing for them rather than continuing to produce the biggest possible commodity heap.”