Growing rapeseed with accompanying plants

Uprawa rzepaku z roślinami towarzyszącymi

Rapeseed in company. Ways to sow

What is the cultivation of rapeseed with companion plants? As you can easily guess, in this method a given position is occupied by rapeseed together with a mixture of other species. The plants develop together for several weeks, after which the accompanying plants are assumed to be destroyed by low temperatures, although, depending on the composition of the mixture, some species may still remain in the field.

In practice, farmers use various sowing methods. Seeds of a mixture of companion plants can be sown about 2 weeks before the rapeseed sowing date or even earlier, treating it as an intercrop into which rapeseed will later be sown directly. The condition is to have an adapted seeder that can cope with sowing straight into the cover of live plants. Another way is to sow all components of the mixture at the same time. Rapeseed seeds are mixed with seeds of other species, and if you have a seeder with several tanks, you can separate the seeds of individual species, e.g. by sowing alternating rows of rapeseed and accompanying plants.

In this technology, the approach to sowing rapeseed does not change significantly. The target number of rapeseed plants is determined as in standard sowing (30-50 plants/m2). Row spacing from 25 cm is usually used. Before sowing rapeseed with companion plants, weeds should be controlled as effectively as possible.

Is it worth sowing rapeseed very early?

What companion plants for rapeseed?

What plants should be sown together with rapeseed? The basis of such a mixture are usually legumes, most often field beans, vetches, clover, peas, lentils, and fenugreek. Flax, buckwheat, phacelia, Abyssinian oilwort and sunflower are also good additions.

Most of the species mentioned are sensitive to low temperatures, so after winter, only rapeseed remains in the field. In a variant of cultivation with the addition of e.g. white or red clover, the companion plant can grow at the bottom of the field until the rapeseed harvest and later, serving as an intercrop or a base for direct sowing of grain.

It is important that the species selected are not too expansive in their development until the rapeseed leaf stage 4 – later, rapeseed copes well with the competition. When planning autumn herbicide protection for rapeseed, attention should be paid to the scope of action of the herbicides. Species most often sown with rapeseed may be sensitive to e.g. amidopyralid, clopyralid or clomazone. Farmers' experience shows that metazachlor in smaller doses and dimethenamid-P will be safer for companion plants.

The use of a mulch harrow in post-harvest cultivation

Growing rapeseed with companion plants: goals and benefits

Sowing rapeseed with accompanying plants is an activity that requires more work from the farmer and additional expenses, for example for the purchase of seeds. So what is the purpose of this system? According to practitioners, such cultivation brings numerous benefits.

First of all, when using legumes as the basis of an accompanying mixture, we benefit from fixing atmospheric nitrogen and enriching the soil with this ingredient. Rapeseed growing "next door" can benefit from a certain pool of this nitrogen. Other species will, in turn, be able to provide, for example, hard-to-find forms of phosphorus and potassium.

Companion plants suppress the development of weeds well and protect the soil surface against erosion and water evaporation – both in the autumn, in the green state, and after frosts, acting as dead mulch. The remains of accompanying plants are an additional source of organic matter in the soil, and their roots loosen the soil profile.

A very important advantage of growing rapeseed with companion plants is not only the protection of the main crop against weeds, but also against pests. In this regard, companion species can act in two ways. Firstly, the smell emitted by the plant mixture may deter or deceive pests, which as a result "do not realize" that rapeseed is growing in a given location. In other cases, accompanying plants (e.g. field beans) are a more attractive source of food for insects than rapeseed, so they feed on other species, leaving the rapeseed alone.