- Grainseed are hoping that their new conventional winter oilseed rape variety, Pi Pinnacle (Pi 41.7) which has produced the highest gross output over the last two years of official National List trials will catch the imagination of growers this autumn
Pinnacle has performed very well in official and private independent trials and has consistently outperformed the popular conventional variety Campus as well as many hybrids. In national List 1 trials, Pinnacle yielded 108% which was 5% more than Campus. In NL2 trials it outperformed Campus by 4%, yielding 104% – it was the top conventional variety.
But it is not just yield that should attract growers to Pinnacle “If growers are looking to reduce costs as much as possible, growing a high performing conventional variety can enable you to do this,” says Neil Groom, general manager for Grainseed.
Pinnacle was bred in the Cotswolds by Mike Pickford who has been focusing on the UK oilseed rape market for over half a century. Mike has more experience in breeding rape than anyone else in the UK and is fully independent. In the rape market he is the only plant breeder focusing on the breeding of conventional oilseed rape varieties nowadays. Most breeders are focusing on hybrids.
“I aim to breed varieties that are ideally suited to UK conditions. My breeding philosophy is simple and that is to improve individual yield components, such as increasing the size of the seed. Pinnacle has seed with a thousand grain weight between 6.5 to 7gms compared to Campus at 5 to 6 gms.”
“My philosophy of breeding is using a” Component analysis technique” for a high harvest Index. The varieties bred in the Cotswolds are also just right for our conditions in the UK.” says Mike.
Pinnacle has similar vigour and biomass to hybrids. Its shows rapid growth during the stem elongation phase and in terms of agronomics, it has a top 9 rating for lodging resistance and an 8 for stem stiffness. It also maintains clean green stems when ripening allowing more efficient photosynthesis during the ripening grain filling process.
In terms of ripening, it is medium to early, similar to Campus. This allows the following crop to be planted in good time whist the rape seed is already in storage. Mike adds that Pinnacle is a large-seeded variety with good oil content of 44.3%.
As for most Grainseed rape varieties, it has a great disease profile. It has a 7 for Light leaf spot, a 6 for Phoma and it also has good Verticillium resistance.
“A variety such as Pinnacle offers growers peak yields and peak profits,” says Neil. “Last harvest that extra 5% over Campus was well worth it. We are assuming rape price at harvest next year will have steadied a bit and will be around £400/ton. If we take the yield from the RL candidate table for seed yield, Campus yielded 5.05 t/ha which at £400/t results in £2020/ha but Pinnacle yielded 5.25t/ha giving a total figure of £2100/ha which is £80/ha more. We have a small amount of seed this autumn if growers would like to try it. We have high hopes for this variety in the future.”
“The recently published AHDB survey estimated the area of oilseed rape planted this year to be 336,000 hectares, which is 9% up year on year. The areas with growth this year are Yorkshire and Humberside up by 29% and the East midlands up by 20%, taking it up to 63,000 hectares. The eastern region is still the area with the second most rape crop grown at 62,000 hectares. Growers have the incentive to sow this break crop because of maintained higher prices. Growing a high yielding variety with good price levels will make rape an excellent break crop to sow this autumn,” says Neil Groom.
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