My point is why no just plant sunflower for oil? Rapeseed fruit contains only tiny bit of seeds that are just as small as poppy seeds that are also dry and probably hollow? (Correct me on that one please I’m not sure)
Sunflower has much bigger seeds although it needs a bit more room for one plant to grow in comparison to rapeseed, but still the seed is nice and moist surely you’d extract more oil from sunflower than from rapeseed when we’re talking about the same one unit of area these crops were planted on.
In: Economics
Sunflower oil generates more aldehydes – which can be carcinogenic – which is why it’s recommended for low heat cooking only.
Other oils like rape can be used to cook at higher temperatures without creating as many aldehydes.
Sunflower crops yield about 35 to 80 gallons of oil per acre.
Rapeseed crops yield about 127 to 160 gallons per acre.
There’s likely other reasons include local soil and climate conditions, but the economic one is pretty straightforward.
There are many factors in the decision which crop to plant, but mostly it is what profit you can gain from the available land, under a given amount of workload.
That also implies how well some plants grow in the available soil and weather conditions, how much workforce one has available, which machinery is available, what experience they have with the specific plants, etc. and last but not least the market for the produce.
In some cases, sunflowers is a good decision. In others, rape is a better one. It always depends!
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