Nuseed’s N4H161 CL - New option for short seasons and double cropping

Date:04-27-2023

Jed Wall, Nuseed Field Sales Manager, works with a northern North Dakota grower helping him to utilize Nuseed’s N4H161 CL sunflower hybrid for a late season planting situation.

Last year’s spring was a wet one in northern North Dakota, and Jonathan Waibel was looking for a late-season option to make the most of what Mother Nature had thrown his way over the past few months.

So, he contacted Nuseed Field Sales Manager, Jed Wall, to find out what was possible. ″I asked him about possibly putting in some sunflowers late. He said, ‘Let me see if I can get you some of these ones from Texas.’ That’s where they grow them in the short season,″ says Waibel, who farms near the Canadian border.

Hence his introduction to N4H161 CL, an ultra-early high oleic sunflower that shows what modern sunflower breeding can accomplish. It’s the perfect hybrid for northern climates with short growing seasons or in the High Plains for a double crop option. With a shorter plant height, N4H161 CL has excellent root strength and late season plant health.

″I was pleasantly surprised with them, because we had some tough growing conditions, and it was not great planting. They were definitely two weeks — if not three weeks — earlier than my other sunflowers that I planted, probably a week or two earlier than those ones,″ Waibel says.

″They’re short, and not as beautiful as other sunflowers look, but when we got out there to combine them, they exceeded our expectations.″

N4H161 CL flowers several days earlier than anything else in the Nuseed lineup, giving a grower additional planting flexibility without sacrificing yield, Wall notes.

″2021 was our first really big launch of this hybrid. Our primary focus as we go forward is working with growers that want to double crop in the High Plains and other parts of the U.S.,″ Wall says.

″Not only is it a good-yielding hybrid, it’s got good stalk and root strength and the oil content has been very good. It’s been meeting requirements with all the processors and it gives the growers a chance to make a second income off the same field.″

According to Wall, it’s an ideal crop to follow a wheat crop, to take advantage of the weed control applied to the previous crop. It can also benefit growers who have been discouraged from growing sunflower due to the blackbird problem — you have the option of planting very early, desiccating early and getting the crop harvested before the birds show up in the fall.

Waibel represents a contingent of ″rescue growers″ who benefit from using N4H161 CL in wet conditions where they have no choice but to plant late.

″It’s a solid hybrid — very good stalk and root strength, very good late-season plant health and excellent harvestability with great yield and oil. It offers a real one-two punch in that regard,″ Wall adds.