With the main harvest yet to unveil its potential, the planting season begins once again as we move closer to the optimum timing for oilseed rape. This has become an 11-month crop, but it remains a potentially useful crop in a rotation. This is partly because it provides a very useful break crop ahead of winter wheat or a premium-carrying seed crop, or even winter barley.

Rape has many technical benefits for a crop rotation but with some concerns. But perhaps the greatest benefit lies in the fact that it is another crop, another egg in the basket where unpredictable outcomes occur, even with the help of plant protection products.

When price levels can bring an average rape crop into higher gross margin potential than winter cereals, its net benefit cannot be ignored. It is of course subject to the same market price fluctuations as cereals. Even more so, it is subject to the whole vegetable oil crop dynamics rather than just the supply and demand aspects of rape itself.

In particular, crops such as soya beans, sunflowers and palm kernel can all affect the demand for and price of oilseed rape. But that is similar to the price relationship between wheat, barley and maize.

Having a good year

So far this harvest, crops have been performing well. All rape crops looked good to begin with and appeared to have excellent yield potential with a deep layer of podding zone. With most yields reportedly coming in between 4.5t and 5.5t/ha at low moistures, the economics of the crop look good.

Price has been holding up well due to relatively tight stocks and concerns for the current Canadian crop.

Spot price for dry rape to the trade seems to be holding in the €375/t bracket. This was lower a few weeks ago, but it was also higher last spring (€400/t).

So for those who sold some at that price (say one-third), the average selling price would be €380/t. But to get this price, you would have to have the ability to dry and that brings an additional cost at the production end.

That said, the current price of rape makes it stand out in terms of margin. When you add the potential benefits it can bring as a break crop, and as a soil conditioner, the benefits can be further exaggerated. And then add the potential to plant safely by min-till or direct drill and additional savings can be added.

At a dry price of €380 (discarding drying costs), a 5t/ha crop of winter rape would have a gross margin of €751/ha, according to Teagasc 2017 figures.

This is far superior to what even a big yield of winter wheat can do using the same 2017 Teagasc cost data.

And now that rape straw has a tangible market for electricity generation, as well as bedding, we can add a realistic value to its margin. Even if this is only €50/ha, it adds the equivalent on another 0.3t/ha of wheat to the rape margin, plus all the associated benefits of a break crop.

Many benefits from rotation

Rotation is about making a number of crops work for you over time. Individual crops can show a gross margin that looks higher or lower than grain in any given year, but the benefit should really be measured as the net benefit over time across all crops.

While the additional yield or premium earned by a first crop may not be directly attributable to the previous crop, it must be attributed to the rotation and the break crop before it.

We must also remember that part of the benefit of a rotation depends on being able to produce those big yields in those first-after-break slots. This depends more on that combination of good fertility and soil structure which is so dependent on having active biology in the soil.

If you don’t feed the land with something, then the organisms that keep it alive cannot thrive to do all the basic essential housekeeping in the soil. Rotation may not be a huge benefit until the soil improves, but it can be a vital link in that process.

In this regard, I am aware that rape is only one option, but we really have relatively few, especially for a sizable acreage. Beans is another and this crop area is now higher than oilseed rape.

The area trend for the past 20 years is shown in Figure 1. The trend is heavily influenced by relative price movements between grain and rape and it rose to nearly 18,000ha in 2012, but then dropped rapidly following the poor harvest in 2012, high cereal prices and poor autumn planting conditions to get work done.

However, an area equivalent to the protein crop area of 12,000ha should be seen as an absolute minimum over time given its associated benefits in the rotation.

Benefits

  • Having more break crop area means fewer acres of cereals.
  • Rape is a non-target crop for cereal airborne diseases.
  • It provides an opportunity for early drilling, both for the winter rape itself and also for the following crop.
  • It provides an option for non-inversion establishment of the following crop.
  • Having a broad-leaved crop provides another option to tackle grass weeds.

    • Worries

  • Breaks a wheat rotation, which is seen as negative for as long as wheat is a viable option with respect to septoria resistance.
  • There is a limited pool of chemistry for crop protection, especially for pests and weed control.
  • Lack of experience with the crop.
  • Pod shatter could lead to harvest losses.
  • Risk to glyphosate availability for crop desiccation.
  • Annual variability in crop yields.

    • Potential to save costs

    Winter rape is certainly not a cheap crop to grow, being somewhere in the region of winter barley cost. However, it can lend itself to some potential for savings, especially on nitrogen.

    Early planting can help generate more autumn canopy and this will reduce the requirement for spring nitrogen, as much of the required canopy may be present.

    The crop is also particularly suited to the use of autumn-applied poultry litter or pig slurry. These can help drive autumn canopy that may not have to be produced again in spring.

    So the combination of early drilling and organic nitrogen can help grow a canopy which, in turn, is less attractive to pigeon grazing. Together, these could reduce fertiliser costs by over €50/ha.

    Contracts

    Based on the market outlook for grain and rape it would appear that rape has more upsides. There is also a real demand for rape. David Shortall from Quinn’s of Baltinglass tells me that the company is offering contracts to growers for the 2018 crop at €380/t based on 9% moisture. The offer is available up to 25 August 2017 for harvest 2018 delivery.