New oilseed variety shrugs off frosts

Apr 23 2008 by Sam Wood, The Journal

THE low biomass winter oilseed rape variety Es Alienor is proving excellent for the North and Scotland.

William Brown, who farms at West Edington, near Morpeth in Northumberland, has been growing oilseed rape for many years and this year is growing the low biomass rape varieties Es Astrid and the candidate variety Es Alienor.

He said: “We have been growing Astrid for the past two or three years and have found it to be a good solid performer on our farm. Its low biomass makes it easy to manage and harvest. We have tried the new low biomass variety Es Alienor this year and it has proven to be a much more vigorous variety. It has easily withstood the late frosts and snow we have had here in Northumberland. It looks to be one of the varieties to grow in the future, providing it gets recommended this year.”

Howard Eke, of Horizon Seeds, said growers in the North and Scotland were looking for oilseed rape varieties that established well and were vigorous enough to get through the often harsh winters.

“This is why there has been a tendency to go for hybrids in the past. But Alienor is a new conventional oilseed rape variety that can produce the yield with equal plant vigour to hybrids and has even better agronomic characteristics, such as very high light leaf spot resistance.”