So this is what happens to all of those sunflowers.......

I read a letter to the Sunday Times last week from Lord Antony Rufus Isaacs and it has helped explain what happens to all of the sunflowers we see here every year.  I have always semi resented the fact that they are a brief and beautiful blaze of glory and then, those of us who live in France all year round watch them blacken and dwindle, looking anything but pretty for the majority of the time. HOWEVER....here are some interesting sunflower observations:

• They are an icon of summertime in France,  as everyone knows (see photo).
• My bees love sunflowers which flower later in the year and so after the rush of flowers in May and June.  I can watch them crawling over the surface of the huge seed heads extracting the nectar which makes a good quality set honey.
• They are of course harvested in the autumn and their seeds are an important food source for us and for birds and other animals.
• They are pressed to give sunflower oil

Now to Lord Isaacs'  letter


Once the oil has been extracted, the spent husks are formed into pellets which have the same calorific value as wood pellets. These can be used to create energy with minimum environmental impact because the pellets are a by-product of something which has already been harvested for other purposes.

Lord Issacs pointed out that the UK currently imports 10 million tons of coal from Australia to burn in  Drax and Eggborough power stations.  The company he represents is trying to persuade the UK to use French and Ukranian sunflower pellets instead. I know that when he wrote the letter he was trying to sell the product that his company makes, but the point he made while doing it was an interesting one. We use wood pellets for heating in more and more homes in France - either in   wood burning stoves or in central heating systems where, instead of a tank of oil, there is a silo of wood pellets as fuel. I had never realised that there was every possibility that the fuel being used could have been grown locally and be a by product of sunflower oil production.