Grow sunflowers this spring

Grainseed are offering growers the opportunity to grow sunflowers for grain this spring. Es Bella is their sunflower variety which is the best-selling variety in the UK and is now sold by United Oilseeds who introduced the first UK grain pool for sunflowers last year. Neil Groom, general manager, says that there has been significant interest in grain sunflowers. “Bella is an early maturing variety and is the best performing variety in trials.”

“Little trials work had been done in the UK until 2023. With climate change and increasing temperatures, the geographic area has already expanded for sunflowers in the UK. Sunflowers can be successfully produced south of a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel but now more favourable areas to the North and west can be considered. I can see sunflowers really flourishing in the UK within 5 years, and early adopters can try out this great alternative spring crop in2025,” he says.

Neil has a great deal of knowledge and experience of growing sunflowers, being responsible for the Grainseed trials. “In the UK trial, we had some varieties that were too late to harvest, others that did not yield high enough and some that were too tall and needed expensive growth regulation. Our variety Bella is well suited the UK and was the highest yielding variety in trials. But let us look at why sunflowers can be such an attractive spring cropping option,” he says.

• Where can you grow sunflowers, they can be grown on any free draining soil type. Optimum pH is 6.5 to 7.5. They grow well on potash rich clay and clay loam soils and in open sunny sites. Sunflowers are drought tolerant but require good soil structure so remove any areas of compaction to allow good rooting to depth.
• When should they be drilled? Sunflowers should be ideally drilled between the 10^th and 20^th of April at a depth of 3 to 5cms into a warm moist seedbed when soil temperatures at 5cms depth are above 7° C. It is important to establish the crop well. Neil continues “Take time to drill properly. Sunflowers are sowed at 110,000 seeds/hectare or 120,000 seeds/ha on heavier clay soils to achieve a population of 100,000 plants/ha on a 25 – 45cm row width. The seed rate is very important as it governs the seed head size with higher yield coming from smaller heads that are easier to thresh.
• How do sunflowers fit into the farm’s rotation? Sunflowers should not be grown on a closer than 1 in 4 years rotation to prevent disease (such as Sclerotinia) build up in the soil. Avoid any fields where previous crops of oilseed rape crops have suffered from Sclerotinia in the past. Do not follow sunflowers with potatoes. Seed is treated with a fungicide to protect from damping off and seedling blight. If your oilseed rape crop fails in the autumn for some reason, sunflowers can be grown in the spring.
• Inputs Sunflowers are a low input crop, with seed being the most expensive component. Create a stale seedbed to control all weeds including blackgrass. Pre-emergence pendimethalin should be used and then on weedy fields a post emergence application of Fusilade (fluzifop-P-butyl) or Centurion Max (clethodim) can be used under an EAMU for blackgrass control at grower’s risk but on most fields any weeds that germinate after crop emergence normally die as the crop closes in and prevents sunlight getting through.
• Fertiliser needs are low and often zero on fertile sites as the crop’s requirements are only 50N: 80P :150K, so if soils are Index 2 or more then no bagged fertiliser is required other than a little seedbed N.
• Pest control is important early on as pigeons can be problematic for the first 10 days post-drilling. Slugs at the seedling stage can also be a risk so monitor regularly and if numbers are high, use slug pellets. Once the crop has two cotyledons or after 10 days, it rarely needs any further protection against these pests.
• Growth Average yields in the UK are between 1.6 t/ha and 3 t/ha, with best results usually in hot dry years. A variety such as Bella reaches a height of 150 cms tall and it has good standing power. The flower head should be around 10cms across, and the canopy closes over to shut out sunlight. Sunflowers attract pollinators and small birds so are good for biodiversity on the farm.

Harvesting Crop is desiccated when seed is at 15 to 30% moisture .The stem should be fully dead and no longer green or yellow. Harvest occurs, using a normal cereal combine with minor adjustments, normally mid- to the end of September. This means farmers can drill winter wheat as a following crop. Seed dries fast and can be dried on an air-drying floor down to 15% moisture, before drying with warm air down to 9% moisture.

At harvest, the back of the seed head may be infected with Botrytis or Sclerotinia, if conditions are mild and wet. By growing an early variety such as Bella, harvest can take place before these diseases are problematic.

• New United Oilseeds buying pool United Oilseeds launched the first buying pool for sunflower seeds in the UK in 2024 with a price over £400/t. This provides growers with a known market without having to develop local markets for bird seed.

United Oilseeds sunflower project lead and trading manager, Nick Hobson said it was a good first year for the sunflower marketing pool but not without its challenges: “Year 1 was not without some challenges, but that was to be expected and should be with anything new. Some growers in the new marketing pool did better than expected, achieving well over 2 t/ha and some did not fare quite as well. Even those who did not do so well are looking to try again this year, seeing the benefits of this sunshine crop.” 

Neil Groom added: “Bella is early maturing, high yielding sunflower variety performing consistently well in trials and commercially in England. It is an early variety with a high oil content of 48-50%. Bella has good standing ability, to reduce neck snapping, high dry matter yield and excellent disease resistance and has been bred for the UK conditions. There is an upward trend in demand and sunflowers provide a great break crop as well as brightening up the agricultural landscape.”

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