Biggest Harvest of the Canola Crop in History! Canola is a crop that is vastly grown in the Western Cape, a crop that proves fruitful with the South African climate conditions. Southern Oil values its greatest asset being its relationship with over 500 local canola producers. This year, through all the tough elements these farmers have put in the hard work and reached the biggest canola harvest in history!

Although producers were forced to replant in dry soil this year with consequent germination that only materialized at the end of May after significant rainfall, this recorded a yield average of 1.95 tons/ha was still achieved for the region. This has been the highest yield average in the history of canola production.

In total, 43730 tons of canola were delivered to the Swartland area from 22376 hectares. The hectares have increased by 11% while tons have increased by about 50% from 2019. This large increase in tons is attributed to a cool and wet September. It has been proven many times by various research sources that cool and wet conditions can significantly increase yield during the flowering and pod filling stage, but we never thought that the favorable climate effect could be of such an enormous positive nature.

Figure 1: Yield per area in the Swartland from 2015-2020.  With the exception of Klipheuwel and Darling, record yields were achieved for all areas of the Swartland. We are very excited about the future of canola production in the Western Cape. Not only has the crop proved to be a stalwart during a dry growing season, but also to be a significant profit component during a favorable growing season.

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