A look at oil seed crops

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33158, 23 February 1973, Page 7

A look at oil seed crops

if oil seed crops arc grown in the South Island it sems that rape and sunflower are the crops with the most promising possibilities.

Speaking at a seminar held at Seadown in South Canterbury last week by Dalgety Agricultural Research, which has a laboratory and 207-acre experimental farm nearby, Mr J. Lammerink, a scientist of the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln, who has been working with oil crops, suggested that if these crops were to be grown in the South Island sunflower and autumn-sown rape seed were agronomically the most suited to Canterbury and North Otago and spring-sown rape to Southland.

At the other end of the scale, he described safflower as being the crop that was most unsuitable under South Island growing conditions. This was because even during a warm dry summer temperatures at night often dropped sufficiently to cause a high relative humidity, which was favourable for the fungus, Botrytis cinera, to attack the flower heads resulting in head rot, so that an otherwise good looking crop would produce empty shells or poorly developed seeds of low oil content. After six or seven years of yield trials he said that the safflower project at Lincoln had been discontinued. However, Mr Lammerink added that whether these crops would ever be grown on a commercial scale would depend on the value of the seed in relation to the profitability of the pastoral industry and of alternative crops. Dr J. M. McEwan, who is in charge of the Crop Research Division’s substation at Palmerston North, said that they felt that rape seed was best fitted to North Island cropping conditions and it had the advantage of being a crop that was amenable to plant breeding techniques to make it even more desirable. Dr J. E. R. Greenshields, director of the Canadian Department of Agriculture’s agricultural research station at Saskatoon in Saskatchewan in Canada, which has been closely associated with the spectacular expansion of rape seed growing in that country as an alternative to wheat growing in the prairie provinces, said in reply to a question that in the last 10 years rape seed growing had paid off more mortgages in Canada than any other crop. On some 5m acres he said that the average yield was about 9001 b of seed per acre but a lot of farmers got 15001 b to a ton of seed and at $2 to $2.50 per bushel they were receiving $6O to $75 per acre, whereas with a yield of possibly about 40 bushels of wheat they would receive an initial payment of $1.25.

and they might or might not get an additional payment and could end up with about $1.50. For the future Dr Greenshields said he foresaw palm oil as being a major competitor for other oil crops. Mr J. D Currie, a farm advisory officer with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at Oamaru. said he believed that there was a future in sunflowers. Writing in the “Journal of Agriculture” late last year he said that it had a commercial potential as a cash crop in North Otago. Crops yielding between 15cwt and a ton to the acre could be grown and at contract prices of $lOO per ton for oil seed and $l2O per ton for bird seed this fivemonth crop offered a gross margin in excess of $5O per acre. This compared more than favourably with margins available from the cash cropping alternatives. Where sunflowers were sown following a winter greenfeed crop of Tania capable of wintering three weaners to the acre, a gross margin of $lOO for the year could be obtained. In the 1971-72 season Mr Currie said that crops of the Peredovik variety had yielded an average of lOlcwt to the acre, which was equivalent to the profitability of a typical 60 bushel barley crop. Predicted yields of in excess of 14cwt for oil seed sunflowers would favour sunflowers as an alternative to bailey. This season under dry conditions Mr Currie said that late sown crops of barley were likely to yield only about 40 bushels, whereas sunflowers sown at the same time had done well and were expected to return at least twice as much as barley. In the article in the “Journal of Agriculture" Mr Currie noted that it was desirable to be able to irrigate before sowing sunflowers, but after the crop was established it needed little or no additional water and he told the seminar that good yields of sunflower seed under dry conditions in their district would make it an attractive crop. A new opening for oil seeds was discussed by Mr D. T. Edwards, a chemist of Lipid Ltd. which is involved in New Zealand in the development of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s system of feeding an oil seed supplement to animals to promote the deposition of polyunsaturated or soft fats in their tissues to reduce the cholesterol levels in the blood of human beings who eat products derived from them. Mr Edwards noted that

an experiment in Australia in which students had been ted poly-unsaturated fat diets and conventional diets had shown that with the former there was a marked drop ny serum cholesterol. If figures for Australia applied in New Zealand that up to 5 per cent of the population was likely to suffer from coronary heart disease and it was planned to produce sheep, dairy and beef products for a quarter of these tn the polyunsaturated fat form, then this would require the use of some 12.000 tons of sunflower seed in the production of the supplement Sun flower seed was being used for this purpose in Australia. and in New Zealand it was expected to use 250 tons of seed this year and 500 tons next year. By changing the fat of animals to poly-unsaturated. Mr Edwards said that the prospect was opened up of a new range of edible products. Thus butter could be made with a range of spreadability and cheeses with a range of textures, and changes could be made in the flavours of dairy products and also lamb and mutton, which could be a great heln in some markets where sheep meats were disliked. In answer to a question as to why such a development for the good of man was not left open for further development by anyone who wished to do so. Dr L J. Cook, a research scientist with the division of animal physiology of the C 5.1.R.0.. who was one of the men who develooed the process, said that the organisation did not have the funds for further development of their findings and consequently they had called tenders for this. Noting that Dalgety Agri-Lines had been selected, he said they were pleased Dalgetys were prepared to invest money in what could lead to a new era in animal production and in consumption by human beings. Earlier those attending the seminar saw' both rape and sunflower and also safflower growing on Dalgety’s Rua Pae experimental farm. Mr D. B. Bishop, agronomist involved in new crop development, said that small plots of rape w’ere being grown from Wanaka to Hamilton to see how it grew. He said that a half acre area at Hamilton had yielded just over a ton t<> the acre, although with bird damage and the effect of the hot weather about 30 per cent of the seed had not been harvested. The visitors also saw’ an 18-acre crop of sunflowers which was estimated to give a yield of about 17cwt of dried seed to the acre. Again it was reported that trials were being conducted throughout the country with this crop also, but about 00 to 70 per cent in the north were almost a total failure due to sclerotinia disease.