With fields now cleared, merchants are seeing a surge in late orders for OSR as growers place last minute orders for rape.

Many famers had considered dramatically reducing their rape area or not even growing the crop at all after the difficulties of the 2012/13 growing season, but with previous crops now cleared and seed beds in good condition the high gross margins available from rape have caused many to rethink their pre- harvest cropping plans for the 2013/14 season.

Growers would be forgiven for thinking that hybrids were the “only” option from the volume of press articles to this effect over recent weeks, but the surge of interest in Trinity from farmers, agronomists and merchants since the publication of the latest HGCA results would indicate that a broader view is being taken.

Elsoms have seen a surge in sales of new oilseed rape variety Trinity following the publication of the excellent HGCA RL trial results. “Growers are obviously attracted by the consistent high yield but we are seeing a lot of interest because of the flexibility that a vigorous OP like Trinity gives growers,” commented OSR breeder, Mark Nightingale. ”One of the keys to Trinity’s high performance is its excellent early vigour that makes it ideally suited for later drilled rape crops. Whilst recent publicity has suggested that hybrids are ideally suited for late drilling, what the grower actually requires is a variety with strong vigour, which could equally be a hybrid or an OP” added Mark.

“Trinity’s flexibility derives from a  very aggressive growth habit, combined with the option of using the higher seed rates that can be used for conventional varieties, compared to expensive hybrids, making it an ideal choice for a wider range of establishment methods and timings” according to Mark Nightingale, Elsoms OSR Breeder. “We have some very impressive hybrid varieties in our breeding programme,” added Mark, “but we have also been successful in identifying vigorous performing OP’s such as Trinity which can provide growers with an equally high level of autumn growth and overall performance”  

“We had a lot of initial interest in Trinity following Cereals 2013” said Bob Miles, Elsoms Agricultural Director. “Across the industry we know that people were waiting for a third set of results to confirm its potential and now we know that Trinity has achieved the highest gross output in 2013 HGCA RL Trials (E/W) at 108%  we are seeing farmers, merchants and agronomists really getting behind the variety with is combination of “hybrid” yield and OP consistency proving very attractive,” he concluded.