Oilseed rape

[JanieB]

The university I attended let their land out to a local farmer. When I was doing my 1st year exams, in a very hot summer, all the land around the examination building was covered in flowering rape. It was totally miserable. I (and other hayfever sufferers) daren't take antihistamines as they can make you sleepy. It was also difficult when you are constantly wiping your nose and sneezing .

Um, I was a mature student by the way. This wouldn't have been a problem had I taken my degree 40 years ago .

[vicky]

"oilseed rape crops receive on average three herbicides, two fungicides and two insecticides during the course of a growing season."


and the rest! I live opposite a field, seems they were spraying it every other day!
Now it's all gone and the field is brown againI miss it!

[Hilary B]

Some of us call it 'the yellow peril'.
It is foul stuff for a variety of reasons, not least that it stinks of rotten cabbage whenever a tractor is driven into the field where it grows.
The straw is useless, and while bees can extract honey from it (unless some prat kills them off trying to control pollen beetle) the honey is useless for bee-feeding in winter,because it sets so hard so soon after collection (if there is any near you, and you think your bees may be working it, extract the honey within a couple of weeks).
You may gather I don't like it......

[Headfry]

It brings in loads of honey, but..... it sets as quick as looking at it!
Even sets in the bees honey comb can be a real problem for bee keepers and bees alike!

Diving to work one year. On both sides of the road were fields of rape.
Foggy morning, rape was is flower .....yellow fog, it really was very strange! but kinda nice though.

[SlugLobber]

Can't stand the stuff. It stinks and affects many horses when in flower. Headshaking is a real problem with this stuff. I hope it's never grown behind my house. The dirty farmer spreads human waste, which is bad enough. That mixed with OSR? Yuck!

[Flummery]

Human waste was traditional - it was called Night-soil. Great crops - re-cycling. What's the difference which kind of bum it comes out of?

[HeyWayne]

Well, I like it (osr that is, not human poo). I don't suffer from hayfever, I don't like horses and it looks nice and bright on a summers day.

*starts up the CAMPOSR - Campaign for the Protection of Oil Seed Rape.

Actually CAMPOSR sounds like some gay modelling agency....

[di]

I like it too & refuse to believe that my often coinciding symptoms of bad sinuses & sneezing could be any way related!!
On the negative side~& i have absolutely no idea where he's based his findings so no-one ask but a chap at lottie is convinced it contributes to blight?!Apparently the years it's grown near our site there's blight & the years it's not there's not!?

[SueA]

It does look pretty but it does always set off my hayfever, even if we drive past a field with the windows up & pollen filter on the air-con., I still get a tickle in my throat, sore eyes & start sneezing.

[Hilary B]

I have 2 main objections to the 'pretty' muck (apart from the cabbage stink, and friends with allergy problems)
1) the chemical input it needs (as already posted) is totally against anything I can believe in as 'farming'. I have no intention of going all organic, but there are limits, and the yello peril exceeds them all by a long way.
2) it is one of the 'triumphs' of Monsanto that they produced a strain resistant to weedkiller, thus increasing even further the amounts used on the crop.