Sinapis alba

Sinapis alba is a ANNUAL growing to 0.6 m by 0.3 m at a fast rate.
It is hardy to zone 6 and is not frost tender. It is in flower from June to August, and the seeds ripen from July to September. The species is hermaphrodite and is pollinated by Bees, flies, wind.
Suitable for: light , medium and heavy soils and prefers well-drained soil. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic soils. It can grow in semi-shade or no shade. It prefers moist soil.

Prefers a light well-drained soil. Succeeds on most soils when growing in a sunny position. For best production, it requires high nutrient soils with a high level of nitrogen, but it may be grown on a wide range of soils from light to heavy, growing best on relatively heavy sandy loamy soils. It is not suited to very wet soils. White mustard grows best where the annual precipitation varies from 35 to 179cm, annual temperature from 5.6 to 24.9°C and pH from 4.5 to 8.2. White mustard is a quick-growing long-day annual which prefers temperate climates with some humidity. It is sometimes cultivated, both in the garden and commercially, for its edible seed. The plant can withstand high temperatures, but very hot days during flowering and ripening may reduce seed setting and lower quality of seed. There are some named varieties. It is a very fast growing plant, but requires plenty of moisture for optimum growth. Seed yields are usually a bit less than 1 tonne per hectare, though experimental plantings have suggested that up to 8 tonnes per hectare is possible. White mustard is sometimes also grown as a seed sprout, usually with cress seeds to supply mustard and cress. This is a mixture of the two types of sprouted seeds, used when about 7 - 10 days old. The mustard seed should be sown three days before the cress seed. The plant is not very deep rooted, it self-sows freely when in a suitable site.