Source
https://www.agronomysociety.nz/files/2012_4._Sowing_date_effects_on_biodiesel.pdf — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Fasi et al. (2012) — Sowing-date effects on oilseed rape (Lincoln, Canterbury)
⭐ The only NZ oil crop with both legs — yield and oil content — from a single measured trial
Agronomy New Zealand 42, 33-42 · Lincoln University, Canterbury. Verbatim: “Oilseed rape yielded an average of 2.4 t seed/ha with 42% oil content.” Brown mustard and camelina yielded just over 1 t/ha, at 30% and 35% oil respectively. 2.4 t/ha × 42% = ~1,008 kg oil/ha — IN THE SEED. 🔴 That is oil in the seed, not oil recovered. The trial’s press was “a cylinder hole screen press operating at a throughput of 20-35 g/minute with a choke size of 4 mm and operating temperature of 80°C” — a laboratory analytical press measuring oil CONTENT. It gives no recovery fraction and cannot be used to derive press efficiency (RT_391). ⚠ The 2.4 t/ha is a mean across sowing dates, and the trial was irrigated (Wakanui silt loam).
Summary
A field trial reported in Agronomy New Zealand examining how sowing date affects the yield and oil content of oilseed rape and two comparison oilseeds (brown mustard, camelina) at Lincoln University, Canterbury. The trial measured both seed yield per hectare and oil content per unit of seed on the same plots, which is precisely why it matters here.
Across the NZ oil-crop lane, every other NZ pathway is missing a leg: olives publish kilograms per tree with no planting density (OT_180, OT_181), hazelnuts publish per-hectare yields whose in-shell-vs-kernel basis is undeclared while the oil percentage is kernel-basis (OT_182, LIT_096), and walnuts publish composition with no NZ yield at any scale (LIT_097). Oilseed rape is the only NZ oil crop the corpus can carry to a defensible kg-oil-per-hectare figure, and even then only as oil in the seed.
Key claims
- claim: "OILSEED RAPE YIELD AND OIL CONTENT, verbatim: 'Oilseed rape yielded an average of 2.4 t seed/ha with 42% oil content.' Brown mustard and camelina yielded just over 1 t/ha, at 30% and 35% oil content respectively. 2.4 t/ha at 42% = approximately 1,008 kg oil per hectare IN THE SEED. [verified verbatim against the source; the 1,008 kg/ha is the product of the two verbatim figures]"
source_location: "Fasi et al. (2012), Agronomy New Zealand 42:33-42 — results, oilseed rape yield and oil content."
- claim: "⚠ THE 2.4 t/ha IS A MEAN ACROSS FOUR SOWING DATES, and the trial was IRRIGATED (Wakanui silt loam, Lincoln). Per-sowing yields recorded: 2,325 / 2,406 / 2,939 kg/ha. [verified verbatim against the source]"
source_location: "Fasi et al. (2012), Agronomy New Zealand 42:33-42 — trial design (sowing dates, site, irrigation) and per-sowing yield results."
- claim: "⚠ THE EXTRACTION METHOD IS A LABORATORY ANALYTICAL PRESS, NOT A PRODUCTION PRESS. Verbatim: 'a cylinder hole screen press operating at a throughput of 20-35 g/minute with a choke size of 4 mm and operating temperature of 80°C.' It measures oil CONTENT; it gives no recovery fraction and CANNOT be used to derive press efficiency. [verified verbatim against the source]"
source_location: "Fasi et al. (2012), Agronomy New Zealand 42:33-42 — methods, oil extraction."Neobiome Intelligence relevance
Feeds d02_smart_food_systems as the only defensible NZ kg-oil-per-hectare pathway — with an explicit, unresolved recovery term.
| Term | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Seed yield | 2.4 t/ha (mean of sowing dates; per-sowing 2,325 / 2,406 / 2,939 kg/ha) | LIT_095, irrigated Lincoln trial |
| Oil content | 42% | LIT_095, laboratory analytical press |
| Oil in the seed | ~1,008 kg/ha | product of the two above |
| Recovery fraction (press efficiency) | UNSOURCED | not derivable from this trial (RT_391) |
| Oil recovered | not computable | — |
🔴 Do not adopt the circulating “806 kg recovered oil/ha”. It rests on an unverified 80% recovery assumption that no retrieved source supports. Its “73%→80% recovery” phrasing does not match the abstract it cites, suggesting a paraphrase error; and the general primary that would settle it (J. Food Engineering, Singh & Bargale 2000) is paywalled and has not been obtained. The correct treatment is to report oil-in-seed with an explicit flagged recovery band, never a single recovered-oil figure.
Two caveats that bound the 1,008 kg/ha upward:
- Irrigated. A community on unirrigated Canterbury land, or on a wetter or drier region’s soils, should expect less.
- A mean across sowing dates, spanning 2,325–2,939 kg/ha in the recorded values — i.e. sowing date alone moves the answer by roughly a quarter. A single-point yield hides that.
Processing and market legs come from elsewhere: OT_183 establishes that NZ oilseed rape is commercially cold-pressed at scale (a plant 20 km south of Christchurch) and contract-grown nationally on both irrigated and non-irrigated properties — which is what refutes dismissing oilseed rape as “industrial only”. No engine cell is auto-changed by this ingest.
Notes
- An incompleteness carried forward honestly. Three per-sowing yields (2,325 / 2,406 / 2,939 kg/ha) are recorded here against four sowing dates. The fourth value has not been inferred or back-calculated; the full per-sowing series sits in the paper’s results table.
- Provenance: the publisher URL 404s (the Agronomy Society site is under reconstruction). The copy held is from the Internet Archive, snapshot 2024-07-15, verified in full, and is a complete PDF of the published paper.
- The press description is worth keeping verbatim. “20-35 g/minute” is the giveaway: that is an analytical throughput, orders of magnitude below any production press. It is the detail that makes the “cannot derive recovery” conclusion checkable rather than asserted.
- Vintage: 2012.
Research targets
Documents to retrieve
- RT_391 — the screw-press oil recovery fraction: what proportion of the oil in the seed a mechanical screw press actually extracts. This is the cross-cutting blocker for the entire oil-crop lane, not just oilseed rape: every NZ figure held is oil in the seed. The general primary (Singh & Bargale 2000, J. Food Engineering) is paywalled and has not been obtained; the only recovery evidence in corpus is hemp-specific and non-NZ (LIT_098).
Research gaps
- Not raised as research targets (recorded here instead):
- An unirrigated NZ oilseed rape yield. This trial is irrigated; a rain-fed figure would bound the community case properly. OT_183 confirms contracts exist on non-irrigated properties but publishes no yield.
- The fourth sowing-date yield (see Notes) — a re-read of this same paper, not a new retrieval.
- Brown mustard and camelina at just over 1 t/ha (30% and 35% oil) are recorded here as comparison crops; neither is a candidate pathway at that yield, so no target is opened for them.
Connections
Links to
Referenced by