Spring Oilseed Rape

Hybrid and conventional oilseed rape varieties,bred by the market leading OSR breeders

Our Range Of Products

Click on the product below to explore the current Goldcrop Spring Oilseed Rape Varieties product range. For further details and ordering, please contact your Goldcrop sales representative.

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Agronomy Tips for Spring OSR

Spring Oilseed Rape

When it comes to achieving successful Spring Oilseed Rape (OSR) crops, implementing sound agronomy practices is crucial. Here are some valuable tips to enhance the growth and yield of your OSR during the spring season.

Click to expand the key points. →

Sow in Late March/Early April once soil temperatures are warm, to ensure a rapid germination. Resist the temptation to drill too early.

Use a residual herbicide (e.g. Butisan) to remove early weed competition, and the use of a suitable graminicide (e.g. Stratos Ultra, Falcon etc) to control grass weeds, wild oats and volunteer cereals is also advised.

Monitor and treat for cabbage flea beetle and pollen beetle. Treat pollen beetle at green bud stage if necessary not once flowering.

Most soils types and indices will require:

N          50 to 150kg/ha. Where more than 80kg N/ha is required apply 50kgN/ha in the seedbed and the remainder by early May.

S          50 to 80kg/ha. Applied in March or into the seedbed

P          30 to 40kg/ha.

K          20 to 80kg/ha.

1 application of a broad-spectrum fungicide mix at early flowering should suffice. (e.g. Juventus + Filan, or PTZ + Azoxystrobin)

Recommended to spray off the crop with glyphosate pre-harvest, but important that the crop is harvested as soon as its ready to avoid seed shedding in case of broken weather. Normal harvest date would be late August or early September.

Spring OSR vs. Cereal Crops: The Economic Advantage

Cereal crop margins are under pressure this year due to increased growing costs and falling output / grain prices. Spring OSR presents a realistic alternative to cereals, especially as the financial outlay is less than cereals (lower level of inputs), it can work well on heavier land that will take extra time to dry out now, and it also sets up a break ahead of first crop cereal for harvest 24 when hopefully input costs will have reduced and output prices will have risen too. Spring OSR also qualifies for the Tillage Incentive Scheme, and/or the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) scheme.

Goldcrop estimate the total growing costs of Spring OSR to be approx. €1300 per hectare (€520 per acre) on your own land. Allowing for a harvest price of €425 per tonne on the OSR produce, then a break even yield of 3 tonnes per hectare (1.2 t/acre) is required. If the SIM of €150/hectare is taken into consideration, then the break even yield drops to 2.75 tonnes per hectare (1.1 t/acre).

Our experience with Spring OSR grown in Ireland is that yields of 3.0tha (1.2t/ac) are easily achievable on suitable sites, with the best growers capable of knocking out 3.5 to 4.0t/ha (1.4 to 1.6t/ac) in good growing years – like we saw in Harvest 2022.

Additionally, a grower will have a break crop in the rotation which will then set them up nicely for sowing a first cereal in 2024, and typically cereal yields following OSR will increase by 1.2 to 1.5t/ha over a crop grown in a continuous cereal rotation.