Oilseed rape seed sales are reported to be increasing dramatically this year. The early harvest and good field conditions are making it an ideal year to plant the crop.
Goldcrop’s arable seeds general manager Donal Fitzgerald reported sales were already up at autumn 2023 levels last week.
Donal expects that the area will return to at least 15,000ha this season, which is the area that the 2023/2024 crop finished at.
He said: “It could increase more given that the opportunity and window for sowing the crop have never been better.”
He added that the economics of growing the crop stack up very favourably when you can lock in a forward price on some of the area grown.
In 2022/2023, oilseed rape area peaked at 20,500ha according to Department of Agriculture figures. In 2023/2024, 15,099ha were harvested and in 2024/2025 approximately 11,297ha were down to be harvested according to preliminary figures.
Planting oilseed rape now will help to have some of the workload behind farmers heading into the winter months and balance workload later on in the season. It provides a break crop to reduce take-all and herbicide resistance build-up as well as adding to the next cereal crop’s yield.
You can read more on oilseed rape and some tips for planting at this link.
Donal added that catch crop seed is also in high demand and commented that non-brassica catch crop mixes are now sold out at the company following unprecedented and exceptional demand due to the Farming for Water project.
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