Premium Crops will launch a new winter linseed contract at Cereals with values over £500/t.
According to seeds and marketing director Nigel Padbury, with typical yields at 2.5–3.5t/ha and a price of £550/t it puts it well within range of an average rapeseed crop on a gross return basis, and ahead of input savings such as nitrogen.
“We’re basing contracts on paying £500/t, but that’s the minimum,” says Nigel. “It could be another 10% above that. And unlike drilling a wheat crop and hoping the price is okay at harvest, a contract gives you certainty from the start, not an unpredictable spot price.”
On show will be variety Atilla. Premium Crops has been evolving and refining its winter linseed varieties for over a decade, and Nigel says that on the back of years of successful crop trials, the company believes a number of factors now make it an irresistible alternative to OSR.
“Winter linseed sidesteps many of the disease pressures that have made OSR so difficult to manage,” says Hannah Foxall, Premium Crops Agronomist. “It’s unaffected by CSFB, removing one of the most significant and costly threats facing oilseed rape crops today. The chance of crop loss to pests is significantly lower.”
Linseed’s nitrogen requirement of just 80–120 kg N/ha compares very favourably with the 190–200 kg N/ha typically applied to OSR. With ammonium nitrate currently trading 30% above pre-conflict prices, that represents £150/ha in saved input costs.
“In addition, as linseed is not as attractive to slugs as OSR, the slug burden is lowered in the following wheat,” adds Hannah. “These benefits, combined with linseed’s flexible sowing window – with winter linseed drilled up to the end of September – allow more time to create stale seedbeds before sowing.
