Sunflowers are like money in the bank for Jim Thorson of Penzance, Sask., who calls it a crop that survives when all else fails.
“It’s my insurance crop. When the weather really goes against us, we’re in the middle of a drought and the grasshoppers are really bad, sunflowers pull through better,” he said.
Thorson, participating in an information session on sunflower growing in Saskatoon June 27, said his sunflower crop had good yields in the drought of 1988 when his wheat could only deliver 10 bushels per acre.
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The chair of the Saskatchewan Sunflower Committee, which promotes production and tests varieties, said sunflowers consistently give him a better return per acre than any of his other crops.
An added bonus is a harvest date that is much later than for his wheat, canola and pulses.
“They’ll wait for you,” said Thorson, who noted harvest can occur in the winter months.
Birds are a menace but can be kept at bay by planting sunflowers away from sloughs and by discouraging flocks from spending time around the plants.
Insects are also present but rarely a problem.
“They never seem to get thick enough to do something about it,” he said.
Sunflowers are a scavenger crop that digs down deep for the nutrients it needs, said Thorson.
Well anchored, the plants will bend over in plow winds and come back up for harvest, he said.
Of Thorson’s 8,000 seeded no-till acres, up to 640 are sunflowers.
He sells to oilseed markets for use in birdseed in Manitoba, Alberta and the United States. He also supplies sunflowers to Sun Country Farms at Langham, Sask.
Saskatchewan grows only 15,000 acres of sunflowers annually, a figure Thorson would like to see increase.
A lack of research in Canada on new varieties and a short growing season for existing confectionary varieties are among factors that have held back sunflower production in Saskatchewan, he said.
There are too few acres to encourage companies to set up crushing plants and farmers hesitate to grow them without those processing facilities, he said.
Thorson said sunflowers crush easily and require little filtering, offering potential for homegrown industries like small scale bottling of edible sunflower oil.
The biggest inhibitor is money because there has to be profit in it to encourage farmers to seed acres.
“Growing them is not the problem, the issue is markets,” he said.
Thorson advised farmers to start small and do homework on sunflowers.
“Don’t seed your farm to them until you understand them,” he said, citing the few chemicals that are registered for sunflowers in Canada.
Thorson sees potential in a pending biofuel industry that could bring equipment to the province for crushing and processing.
During a tour of the University of Saskatchewan’s engineering building, delegates learned about fibre, oil and milling equipment and the mix of natural and recycled materials used in processing.
Thorson said sunflowers could play a role as a binding agent in products made of fibre and cited research underway in Europe to incorporate oils into flooring, pillows and plastics.
In addition to its use as an edible oil, sunflowers can be fed to dairy and beef herds.
Dave Christenson, professor emeritus in animal science at the U of S, sees its feed potential. Sunflower offers cows safe energy and protein sources and they find it palatable, he said, citing studies that show a milking cow can be fed up to 1.5 kilograms of sunflowers per day.
There are 1.1 million milking cattle and 500,000 replacement heifers in Canada, but only 35,000 milking cows in Saskatchewan.
“It is a market but not a huge one,” he noted.
Sunflower’s biggest advantage is the lack of processing needed before being fed to dairy cattle, said Christenson.
The sunflower committee plans to create a fact sheet on sunflowers as cattle feed and target large commercial dairy producers, animal nutritionists and veterinarians.
“It’s like a salesperson,” said Christenson. “It gives them information they can use.”
