I find this very interesting in todays times of limited marketing on alternate fuels and salute you guys for busting out of the shackels the government keeps us in.
Question is, have any of you grown canola and processed it to oil? I have read of yields of about 5 lbs an acre. How much oil will 5 lbs of seed produce? I am wondering about the amount of land we need to produce a sufficient produce and considering rotation to run the farm. Thanks for your interest.

 

Your figures are way off. We grow cannola here in the Northwest, Non-irrigated yealds average 2,000 lbs/acre. Irrigated will produce between 4-6,000lbs/acre.

40 percent of each lb/seed=oil. I planted 20 irrigated acres this spring that should yeald 60,000lbs of seed, with 40 percent oil I should get 24,000 lbs of oil. At an average of 6 lbs/gal oil that should be aprox 4,000 gallons of oil.

FABMANDELUX.

 

how do you plan on extracting this oil fabman? also what are the adequate climates for growning canola. I know we can grow soybean down here but not sure bout canola!

 

I found an oil press for $2,000 that will cold press 1,500 lbs/day. I'ts coming from China so won't be here for another 2 months.

If you can grow wheat, or any other grains, you can grow canola. Canola is an excellent rotation crop for Wheat. It "fixes" nitrogen in the ground so you need less the next time you plant grains.

FABMANDELUX.

 

Wow. That's 100 gals/day. The Plantdrive press ($3500) will only produce up to 12 gals/day. But they calculate 33% oil and 67% seed pellets as well as 8.33 lbs/gallon, but that is still 60 gallons/day - a significant output. Where did you find this one?

 

bassproguy
This study published by A&M says you can grow Canola (Rapeseed) here
http://san-patricio-tx.tamu.edu/publications/canola.pdf
The study was done in 2002 so there may be more current info available

 

Where did you order your press from, I would like to order one also.

 

Can you use raw canola oil in the Biodiesel mix?
I had a summer job in an Canola plant, and they process it much further than that for consumption, including Hexane scrubbers.. but that may not be necessary for fuel use.
The stuff stinks like hell coming out of the rollers, I can tell you that for a fact.

 

Interesting. Once you get the oil, how far are you from fuel? Is canola a summer or winter crop? How much fuel do you consume to make the crop?

The possiblity I see is for a farm that procuces it's own fuel from canola, then a food crop in the off season. Say summer canola, then winter wheat. Sell the wheat at market for a cash crop. Make the canola to be independant of fuel prices (still have to buy fertilizer and weed killer). Possibly even sell extra fuel oil to other farmers. (can't sell it for road use or you WILL have the gov't down on you.)

 

Ok, where do I start............We use our own biodiesel to farm, so we have minimal farming cost. You can grow canola as a winter crop, or a spring crop, but with spring planting the yeald is reduced by 25 percent. Planting rates are 8lb/acre vs 80-100lb/acre for wheat, our cost for seed was $3.50/acre.

Winter canola is VERY sensitive to planting time. In our area planting must be done by Sept 15th, if you don't plant till oct 15 the yeald drops by aprox 30-40 percent! Our spacing is 16" between rows, Canola is a LARGE plant!

You are close to what we're trying to acheve: As an example.....
Farmer "A" farms 5,000 acres of dry land wheat and uses 10,000 gal of dino-diesel / year. If he plants 133 acres of winter canola and acheves 150 / gal of oil / acre [low side of average] his yeald would be 19,950 gal of oil. If he joins a Co-Op with 5 others and they all pool their yeald together the farmer gets 10,000 gal/ fuel for next year, and the Co-Op gets 9,950 gal of oil that it can sell on the open market for a profit! All for the cost of planting and harvesting. Plus the Co-Op has the "feed-meal" [60 percent of total weight of seed] to sell to cattle feed-lots [at $135-$145 per ton] The farmer gets the fuel he needs CHEAP, and shares in the profit from the sale of the fuel and the feed-meal! One thing I am working on is taking the glycerol and combining it with waste straw to form fuel-pellets that have a market value here of $145/ton...........another "profit center". At present I'm under contract with 3 countys to form Co-Op's, and I've got a request to give another speach in another county 125 miles away.

As far as the oil-press I ordered, I'll have to dig a little to find the link to the exporter I'm using but you can see the model I ordered on ebay: #7612984437 Their price was $1,995, but I found their importer and bought it for $500 cheaper.

FABMANDELUX.

 

Thanks Fabman, thats the info I am looking for. You are a true American hero. Making something out of nothing, selling it and combating the competition. As Ronald Reagan said don't legislate, initiate! Great work. We will sit down and discuss this and begin our research into the feasibility of this working in our region.

 

Your very welcome. Americans are sometimes slow to react, but when we do.......... I've got extensive research on growing canola in this area. Mr Don Wysocky at the OSU research station here has been researching canola for 30+ years and is always willing to share his findings. One thing you should be aware of, Don's latest research shows that a better way of harvesting canola is not to combine canola while it is standing. Canola has a problem with "shattering", to combat this problem we now swath and windrow the crop when green, then after it drys we combine it. This improves the yeald about 20 percent!

Please feel free to post any questions here if you need any more help. you can also PM me if you would like to talk privetly. I'll always share whatever I can.

FABMANDELUX.