Last edited on 3 Feb 2024. View history
Rapeseed
Rapeseed
A variety of Brassica
How to sow rapeseed: Direct seed outdoors
Sun requirement for rapeseed: Plant in Full Sun
Rapeseed, or Oilseed Rape, is an annual or biennial flowering plant in the Brassica family that is grown for its oil-rich seeds. The seeds are used to create vegetable oil, feed livestock, and produce biodiesel. Canola is a specific cultivar. Rapeseed has an upright growth habit, flattened leaves, yellow flowers, and sickle-shaped seed pods with tiny black seeds. The oil of wild varieties is high in erucic acid and can be toxic, but cultivated varieties are nearly free of erucic acid. Young leaves can be eaten as kale-like greens. Rapeseed can become invasive as it naturalizes in the wild easily. It is tolerant of saline conditions.
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Rapeseed facts
Lifespan
Height × spread
120cm × 60cmRow Spacing
8cmWhat are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For rapeseed, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 85 days at its best temperature, about 1275 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your rapeseed will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Photos
PhotosRapeseed crops
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Brassica napus L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Capparales Cruciferae |
|---|---|
| Optimal temperature | 15 - 25 °C |
| Absolute temperature | 5 - 41 °C |
| Killing temperature | growth: -6 °C, rest: -15 °C |
| Optimal rainfall | 500 - 1000 mm/year |
| Absolute rainfall | 400 - 2800 mm/year |
| Optimal soil pH | 6.5 - 7.6 |
| Absolute soil pH | 5.5 - 8.0 |
| Crop cycle | 85 - 340 days |
| Max altitude | 2000 m |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual, biennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
| Optimal light | very bright to clear skies |
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