Oilseed rape is working its way back into arable plans for harvest 2027, and the growers behind the move are not sentimental about it. A conversation on The Farming Forum’s Cropping section, running through August drought and into the September drilling window, follows the decision farm by farm: more area committed, seed sitting in dust waiting for rain, and a wary eye on the cabbage stem flea beetle that pushed so many out of the crop in the first place.
By TFF News | 6 September 2026 | Cropping
The conversation drew 108 visible contributions and 8,848 views between 28 July to 5 September 2026, collecting 160 reactions at an average of 1.48 per contribution, with activity peaking as crops emerged in early September. These figures describe one conversation among the growers who chose to join it. They are not a representative survey of the sector.
Area is going up, for hard-headed reasons
12 contributions dealt with area and rotation decisions, and the direction of travel was consistent. The grower who opened the conversation set the tone: “OSR is the only crop I'll turn a profit on for 2026 harvest other than environmental schemes, so the area is going up a bit more.” Another was blunter still about the arithmetic and the rotation: “I’m also doubling my area. Not just for the financial margin, but also it’s how the cropping rotation has worked out this year.”
The crop is even recruiting first-time growers. One contributor weighing up sugar beet contracts said: “We have never grown OSR but am thinking of giving 60 acres or so a go this year. Disc in some chicken muck, drill it with the Claydon and see what grows.” A smaller family operation reported: “Upping acreage from 43 acres this year to 70 for next.”
The mood matches the official data. AHDB’s Early Bird Survey forecast a 30 per cent rise in the oilseed rape area for harvest 2026, to 316,000 hectares, after the 2025 crop fell to a 42-year low of 243,000 hectares. This conversation suggests the recovery has carried into the crop now being drilled for 2027, at least among these growers.
Drilling became a waiting game
Establishment dominated the conversation, with 36 contributions on drilling and 21 on dry conditions and moisture. Through late July and much of August the story was seedbeds worked to dust and nothing sown. One grower walking his stubbles could not even find volunteer rape: “have to admit, it's that dry, the bloody stuff won't grow”. Another had done everything except the one thing that mattered: “Land preparation is done with zero soil moisture present, so it’s a case of waiting now.”
When rain finally arrived in the second half of August the dam broke. By 25 August one contributor observed: “Every farmer in Lincs I think is drilling now.” By the first week of September the reports had turned cautiously optimistic. “We have 150ha that has all come up well. It went into concrete before any of the rain and should have sufficient moisture now to keep it going.” one large grower wrote, while another found “Not found a beetle yet. Rape is really motoring this year. Some of it emerging after only 4 days.”
Flea beetle hangs over the whole bet
Pest pressure drew 19 contributions, and cabbage stem flea beetle was the pest that mattered. The conversation was strikingly settled on one point: pyrethroid sprays are no longer seen as an answer. One experienced grower argued: “Spraying insecticides onto CSFB is largely futile and kills most of the beneficial predators instead.” Another reported a resistance test result from his own farm’s beetles: “Rothamsted collected flea beetle from my contractor and full rate pyrethroid gave 3% control.”
That view lines up with official guidance. AHDB’s current flea beetle management advice tells growers to “park the pyrethroids”, on the grounds that resistance is real and the sprays harm beneficial insects. In this conversation the beetle had not yet arrived in force, but nobody was declaring victory. As one contributor put it while watching a well-emerged crop: “The real concern is CSFB could appear in the heat.”
The cost of entry rankles
Money ran through the conversation’s final days. One grower itemised the exposure: “Roughly 10k in the hole so far with 38ha sown (hybrid seed £3250, DAP £2850, Buckwheat companion £500, +diesel, labour and machinery), and it’s the dreaded wait for reading the rows and hoping they reach rough leaf.” Another contributor argued that “oilseed rape seed cost is total market fixing outwith of paying the breeder costs”, an opinion about pricing in the seed trade rather than any named business, but one that drew agreement.
Others made the opposite case with farm-saved conventional seed: “I’ve drilled 20ha for less than a grand which I thought quite reasonable. Posh seed doesn’t stop flea beetle/pigeons/slugs eating it.” And with slugs stirring after the rain, the risk side of the ledger was on minds too: “there is so much upfront spending as others have said to risk losing the crop to slugs which can happen quickly”, as one contributor put it.
What the trade should take from it
For seed houses, fertiliser suppliers and agronomy businesses, this conversation is a picture of demand returning to a crop many had written off, but returning on the growers’ terms. The spend is real: hybrid seed, DAP down the spout, companion crops, slug pellets ordered by the pallet. So is the scepticism about what that spend buys when the beetle arrives, and the willingness to swap to farm-saved seed at a fraction of the price.
The unresolved question is the one every contributor is now watching in their own rows: whether crops drilled into moisture-starved seedbeds, and now facing flea beetle and slugs through a warm September, establish well enough to reward the expanded area. If they do, the rebound in oilseed rape has another year in it. If they do not, the growers in this conversation have been clear about how quickly they will do their sums again.
Read the source conversation and analysis
Read the full conversation on The Farming Forum here.
Download the full conversation analysis as a PDF slide deck: Osr 2026/27 conversation analysis.
This conversation had been viewed 8,848 times on The Farming Forum when counted on
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