A NORTH Yorkshire farmer may have set a world record with a bumper 7.2t/ha crop of oilseed rape – the national average is consistently below 4t/ha.

Steve Tuer achieved his unofficial record on August 21 at Hutton Grange Farm, near Northallerton, with the hybrid variety, Incentive.

He said: "This used to be a dairy farm, so there is a lot of inherent fertility in the soil, plus all the slurry from our 600-sow and pig fattening unit is spread back onto the 1,000 acres of arable land. The soil is also very heavy, so crops do very well in a dry year like the one we’ve had."

Mr Tuer, who works closely with agronomist Chris Martin from Agrovista, does not believe in sowing oilseed rape early. "This crop wasn’t sown until September 6th at a rate of 35 seed/m2 with a Vaderstad drill, after min-tilling with a Heva Combilift, followed by shallow discs and a packer."

The fertiliser was applied in four splits totalling 220kg of nitrogen as urea. The dates were March 10; March 20 + sulphur; March 28; and April 12 + sulphur. Foliar nitrogen was applied in June with the second sclerotinia spray.

Mr Martin took a "conventional" spray programme of an autumn phoma and Light Leaf Spot spray of Frelizon, followed by an early spring application of Monkey, combined with the nutrition product Headland Bo-La.

The sclerotinia programme then consisted of Recital at early flower, followed three weeks later with Proline in tank mix with Nufol, which Mr Tuer described as a "Rolls Royce Agrovista programme."

"I’ve fallen in love with growing oilseed rape!" said Mr Tuer. "But I invest to yield, make sure my soils are in good condition and keep everything simple – my rotation, cultivations and my agronomy."

He also yielded 12.2t/ha from a crop of Glacier winter barley and has registered a field of Kielder with the ADAS Yield Enhancement Network project – the field previously yielded 16t/ha in 2010.