For several weeks this has been the view from our back door.
The crop on the hillside is canola (colza if you are French, rape if you are British). With the wind and occasional squalls that has characterised this April, the sky has often looked much like this. Often there will be clouds overhead, but just enough of a break to let the sun shine directly on the acid yellow canola flowers.It's a striking looking crop, but the pollen makes my nose run and my throat sore, and it stinks of rotting cabbage. Soon the flowers will be gone and the field will slowly go brown until the dry seeds are harvested in the summer for oil.
Susan
3 comments:
Are you sure that it is the rape making your nose run? Tim thought that too, then we discovered that it is birch pollen that sets him off.
I like the contrasts in the picture.
PG: no I'm not certain it's colza, just assuming. Could be anything really.
True, it could be anything. Thank goodness I'm not allergic to birch pollen. My enemies are cypress and scotch broom pollen. I've never smelled a colza field when it had the stink of rotting cabbage. Guess I won't go out of my way...
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