HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen-Agriculture 2000, 2000-03-15, Page 36PAGE A-12. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2000.
Crop’s potential not being realized in Huron
is a big seller now, Szusz admits it
would be nice to take it to the next
level.
“The biggest thing with growing
sunflowers is that it's a five-year
rotation crop. So*if you had a group
of farmers in the area and could
rotate through it would keep the crop
going for someone to go to the
expense of building a crushing
plant.”
The idea of a co-operative venture
is something that could be looked at
too. “Even a crushing plant in
Ontario would be a help, but it does
n't feasibly pay to truck them out
west.”
“The oil market is ever expanding.
It’s an industry Huron County should
be considering,” says Szusz.
Field of sunshine
The acres of sunflowers at Bob Szusz’s are eye-catching, attracting a lot cf attention from pho
tographers. This one was taken by a member of a photography club in Toronto.
Plant from Norman Alexander,
decided to try growing sunflowers.
Planting the first week in May of that
year in co-operation with Tom and
Roger Cunningham, Szusz experi
mented with the striped sunflower
seed. These ones are not strictly for
the birds being equally enjoyed by
humans.
They found it a “tricky thing to
do,” says Szusz. “Obviously the
weather is a big factor, you need a lot
of sunshine. We couldn’t seem to get
them dry and ran into a lot of mold,
which knocked the yield from the
three acres for a loop.”
After the same thing happened the
next year, Szusz decided to investi
gate the black sunflower seed, which
is preferred by 99 per cent of the
people in their bird feed, as well as
being the seed harvested for oil.
Despite years of research, howev
er, their first year was strictly one of
trial and error.
“We could obtain all kinds of
information on the striped, but
couldn’t find out anything on grow
ing the black oil seed. That first year
in 1998, they planted 3 1/2 acres and
despite the lack of knowledge found
the experiment “worked very well.”
By Bonnie Gropp
Citizen staff
Huron County is the grand cham
pion of agricultural areas. Rich fer
tile soil, summers drenched with
sunshine and warmth, it offers excel
lent growing conditions for a variety
of crops.
What Huron hasn’t managed to do
quite as well is capitalize on alterna
tive ‘growth’ industries through pro
cessing.
Bob Szusz of Londesboro hit upon
a way to enhance his seed plant busi
ness a few years ago by planting sun
flowers. Unfortunately, the potential
for this low maintenance crop is not
being fully realized.
Out west and in the mid-west
United States, sunflowers are grown
for sunflower oil with the seeds
being a bi-product. After the seeds
are cleaned they are graded by size
and the plumper ones are processed
for oil, says Szusz. “High premium
is paid for the quality product.
What’s left goes for bird feed.”
The problem here is that there is
no place to process the seeds.
“There’s no reason it couldn’t be
done; sunflowers can be grown quite
successfully in Huron. 1 don’t know
if it’s a cost factor, though probably
there would be a big cost on machin
ery. But as an alternative crop here in
Ontario, if someone felt rich and
wanted to start a processing plant,
we can grow them,” Szusz laughs.
It was 1993 when Szusz, having
purchased the Londesboro Seed
“We averaged 1,800 lbs. ofclean
product per acre and repeated that
last year,” says Szusz, adding that
the weather had really co-operated
with lots of sunshine and heat.
And those would primarily be the
only conditions needed. Fertile soil
is not important, no chemicals are
.used. Planted with a com planter in
30 inch rows, Szusz tries to scuffle
them before they get too big. If the
weeds are under control early, the
flowers canopy out, smothering any
new growth so the fields stay clean
from there on in.
Harvest in the middle of
September before the birds come
back is done with a combine. “The
heads have to drop totally down and
be brown or black in colour.” The
settings on the combine have to be
set so the seeds, which are very light,
aren’t going to blow out the back
end.
After harvest the seeds are left in
wagons for about a month with aera
tion to make sure they’re dry. They
are then brought into the plant and
run through the cleaning machine to
be bagged and put on the floor for
sale.
However, noting that sunflower oil
crop with potential
Bob Szusz found the value of sunflowers for use in his seed
company, but he wishes more could be made of the crop,
through the processing of oil. While little information was
available on the black sunflower seed when he first started
there is now much to be found on on the internet at ehar
vest.com.
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