Dr. David Drake told producers at a recent crops clinic in Taylor, that even though prospects for some alternative crops are improving, they should still be aware of potential pitfalls before investing time, money and land for crops like canola, sunflowers or safflower.
"You have to consider what kind of equipment you will need along with the markets, environmental considerations and weeds," Drake said. "If what you're growing isn't local, where are you going to get the seeds? Who are you going to ask when you need help? Some of these crops don't have an herbicidal alternative. What kind of pests are you going to have?"
One of the oilseed crops that Drake believes is a good choice for producers to consider is sunflowers. The variety testing site for Texas A&M University ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) lists sunflowers as a potentially profitable alternative crop.
In North Texas, sunflower yields range from 1,800 - 2,400 pounds per acre, 800-900 on dryland acres. At current prices, the gross income from an acre of sunflowers ranges from $162 to $326 per acre for an average of $252 per acre. That's the main reason Drake thinks it can be a good choice, but there are other considerations.
"You do have to look out for pests. You have to scout and spray," he said. "Sometimes you can't put in sunflowers because of where you are. A flock of birds can come in and wipe it out. It's not for every location. If your field is next to a cemetery with a lot of trees where birds like to gather, it might not be a good crop for you."
Dr. Mark McFarland, a Texas AgriLife Extension soil fertility specialist, said the fertilizer needs of most of the oilseed crops have a lot in common with more traditional crops like corn, sorghum and cotton.
"Sunflowers are deep-rooted," he said. "People have tried to grow it as a stepchild crop without fertilizing it. You need to take a soil test like you would for any other crop and fertilize based on those tests."
Canola, a versatile oilseed crop that is generally grown in more northerly climes, is another crop that Texas producers have experimented with on a limited basis, Drake said. Canola is converted into an edible oil, a biofuel oil and is sold as seed meal. The crop is planted in the fall and harvested early in the spring and has shown some promise in the state, Drake said.
In Beaumont, growers average about 15,000 pounds per acre and can expect to sell it for between 14 and 17 cents an acre, for an average of about $232 gross income per acre. As meal, it's worth about $200 to $260 per ton.
Dr. Rick Haney, an Agriculture Research Service scientist at the Grasslands Soil and Water Laboratory in Temple, has grown canola, along with sunflowers, on test plots with mixed results for the last two years. A truck and a tractor at the research center both run on biodiesel made from canola.
Haney is switching to black oil sunflowers this year for biodiesel production because the canola hasn't done well over the last three years. He also plans to buy an attachment that will convert his corn header to harvest sunflowers.
"We're also trying to find the money to purchase a larger screw press (to extract the oil) to increase the capacity," Haney said. "We would like to be able to run both one-ton pickups and both our tractors on 100 percent biodiesel that we grow and process here at the station by 2011.
"On a pound-per-pound basis, we got the most oil out of canola, followed by black oil sunflowers then soybean. But in this area, I believe black oil sunflowers are the best all-around deal for biodiesel production. We have been running our Chevy one-ton diesel truck and a small Ford 4000 tractor on 100 percent biodiesel that we have grown and processed here at the research center for over a year with no conversion and no problems."
A little-known crop, camelina, is being planted in Texas through a grant by the Chevron Oil Corporation. Camelina is high in Omega 3, a heart-healthy amino acid, and turkeys fed camelina double the amount off Omega 3 into their meat.
"It's being grown for meal and for quality-enhanced meat, and is also looked at as biofuel crop," Drake said. "With any of these crops, you have to take a look at the whole picture before you decide if you want to go that route."
Dr. Mark Welch, a Texas AgriLife Extension economist, said that overall the oilseed crops and prices have been there for several years, even if profit from the oilseed crops has sometimes been elusive.
"The vegetable oil market was growing long before biofuels came along," Welch said. "The market always has gone flat during previous recessions but now, during the biggest recession since the Great Depression, demand has gone straight up."
The oilseed market is driven by the biofuel market, which has been fueled in part by federal biofuel mandates. Part of the biodiesel mandate, which stipulated that the country produce 500 million gallons of biodiesel by 2009, is not being enforced. The mandate further calls for production of a billion gallons by 2012.
"We have an increasing demand for these products," Welch said. "It may be a pent up demand if the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the White House decide to enforce the mandates."
