Early harvesting, good soil conditions and a good price are making oilseed rape a very attractive crop to grow this year.

Many in the industry expect the area to increase significantly.

On this week’s Tillage Podcast with the Irish Farmers Journal, Dónal Fitzgerald of Goldcrop commented that oilseed rape area could hit as high as 20,000ha, but it’s very hard to tell where final area will land.

“If you’re talking about a star performer of harvest 2022, I think oilseed rape has really performed very well. Growers had a big yield and that’s going to yield a nice return for them as well given the high prices that are available,” he commented.

“The confidence in that crop has really picked up. Two years ago, we were growing 10,000ha of oilseed rape. This year, we have 14,500ha and I don’t know where it’s going to get to for 2023, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it increased by 20% to 30%.

Break crops

“We could be knocking on the door of 18/19, even up to 20,000ha of oilseed rape for harvest 2023, which would be fantastic in terms of break crops for cereal land. We all know the benefit that can give in terms of an increased yield on cereals.”

Traits like turnip yellows virus resistance and pod shatter resistance have given growers confidence in the crop and made it more attractive to grow.

Where growers had been getting yields of 1.5t to 1.6t/ac, many farmers are now getting average yields of 2t/ac.

“It's good to see the potential and the advancement that has been put into varieties of oilseed rape is actually delivering on farm,” Donal added.

Dónal is confident that seed can be acquired, but there is strong demand for seed across Europe.

However, he advised farmers who want to plant oilseed rape this season to order seed as soon as possible and be patient if they do have to wait for seed as the season goes on.