Rapeseed flourishes digitally

Whether field days, social media films or the Rape Seed Service: Our colleagues in Germany have three new digital offerings.

Rapeseed Stories

Stronger presence in the web

After the team at Corn/Rapeseed Marketing Germany established the corn blog as a successful format, it turned to the goal of strengthening rapeseed’s presence in social media. A key element of that is not just advertising varieties, but also to give farmers recommendations for their current cultivation work. Another objective is to highlight more clearly the technical consulting the company provides on rapeseed.

Short video clips present information on important milestones in rapeseed’s spring growing season. After the Rapeseed Stories had been edited professionally in the team, around 25,000 people watched them on Facebook and some 2,200 on YouTube.

The format has proven its value, especially given that information on plant cultivation is time-critical: The recommendations farmers need reaches them in a very short time – whether directly via e-mail and messages in MyKWS or through social media. |

Rapeseed Movie

Personal online field day

The start of the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing ban on events coincided precisely with the rapeseed field days. Since KWS intended to launch two highly promising new varieties – IVO KWS and ERNESTO KWS – this year and present them in all their glory in the field, we had to come up with an alternative – without sacrificing the regional character that is part and parcel of a field day. Farmers were to be able to ask questions so as to preserve the element of personal contact with their consultant.

The upshot was the KWS Rapeseed Movie – the online field day with a personal touch. Farmers were sent personal invitations to a Microsoft Teams live event through all social media. After personal words of welcome by the region’s consultants and Andreas Krull, Product Manager Winter Rapeseed Germany, the farmers saw the premiere of a film dealing with the vegetation process. The new top varieties and their specific qualities at different locations were also presented.

That was followed by a lively Q&A session in the chat. “A field day on site only offers a snapshot at a particular time, but a short film can look at different stages of the plants’ growth over time,” says Andreas Krull. “That meant we were able to highlight the fact that IVO KWS blossoms particularly early – an important trait of the variety.” The KWS Rapeseed Movie format is completely new and is a mix of content produced in advance and personal addressing of customers. The experiment has proved a success. |

The Rape Seed Service

Resowing at half the price

In past years, farmers have repeatedly faced the question of whether rapeseed could be sown in the late summer due to the high temperatures and related aridity. In the worst-case scenario, very uneven emergence may mean that they have to plow up their fields. Even after very severe winters without snow, there is the risk that rapeseed fields have to be tilled anew in the spring.

KWS is also offering its familiar Seed Service for rapeseed for the first time in the coming sowing season. After farmers have mapped their area in MyKWS and enabled it for the service, KWS is on hand to offer them quick and uncomplicated assistance if they have to plow up fields.

Regardless of why farmers decide to plow up their KWS rapeseed prematurely, they are provided with fifty percent of the seed for resowing in the fall, if that is possible. If they plow up their field too late in the fall or only in the spring, they can also obtain fifty percent of the KWS corn seed they require for the plowed-up area free of charge.

“The Rape Seed Service is a genuine sales argument,” says Dirk Gerstenkorn, Head of Sales Germany for Corn and Rapeseed. “We help safeguard farmers’ harvest with a KWS rapeseed variety and the related Rape Seed Service. We feel sure farmers will appreciate that, especially for a crop that requires such intensive cultivation as winter rapeseed.”

Apart from that safeguard, rapeseed farmers also receive vitality maps for the fields they have recorded in MyKWS. They offer a good overview of the rapeseed stands throughout the vegetation period.

MyKWS has now been enriched with a further crop: rapeseed. That further enhances the attractiveness of MyKWS to customers, too – after all, a platform must include a large number of crops for it to suit the needs of diversified farms that prefer one platform for their entire range of crops. |

◼ How the safeguard works if fields have to be plowed up