LETHBRIDGE – When it comes to crops, canola isn’t the only yellow gold flowering in prairie fields these days.
Camelina’s tiny yellow flowers look similar to those of canola, but they are different plants.
Camelina is fall or winter seeded.
There are no hybrid varieties and no registered pesticides for the crop.
Crop promoters have applied for minor use registration of DuPont’s Assure for broadleaf weed control.
Approval could come in 2009.
Unlike many crops in the early stages of development, the early season, high yielding camelina has a solid market.
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“We can market it. There are no problems getting contracts from U.S. crushers,” said Dan Kusalik of Great Plains, the Camelina Company.
The Lethbridge based Kusalik said the crop is catching on with producers across Western Canada and part of that attraction is being able to say, “yes. We have a market.”
“I’m not saying it’s all going smoothly. We’re learning our lessons about agronomy and marketing on thousands of acres at a time right now,” he said.
“There is no doubt though, it’s successful.”
Kusalik said his company has found American crushers seeking industrial vegetable oil to be highly receptive to the Canadian oilseed.
“We’re talking to Canadian crushers and hope to have them on board too,” he said.
Having a regional crusher would help producers lower their shipping and exporting costs.
“And the more markets you have, the better you are when it comes to getting contracts together,” he said.
Dan Coles of the Southern Alberta Research Association (SARA) at Lethbridge has supervised crop trials of camelina at the SARA crop research site.
“It is an amazing plant. An 80- to 100-day growing season. Plant it in November or even February. Ready to harvest in July and it’s so early that it outcompetes a lot of weeds,” he said.
While the crop is most successfully seeded in the late fall, the tiny oilseed is not a fall annual.
It is a spring annual that is extremely hardy and frost tolerant.
Originating in Siberia and present on the Russian plains, the crop is
attracting some sophisticated genetics attention.
At Agriculture Canada in Saskatoon, breeder Kevin Falk is working with several varieties of Camelina sativa to gain a better understanding of the short-season oilseed and to develop new varieties.
Research by Agriculture Canada and others indicates that under prairie conditions, yields can range from 600 to 930 kilograms per acre.
Kusalik said the crop will use about 50 pounds (23 kilograms per acre) of nitrogen and doesn’t benefit from additional application.
“It’s a low input crop. The plants secrete compounds from their roots that interfere with other plants, reducing weed competition,” he said.
Early Alberta research showed the crop tends to yield less than Polish canola and has slightly lower oil content, but the camelina produces more protein than the canola.
In more recent research, camelina production has been equal to high yielding Brassica rapa under average moisture conditions and can outperform Polish canola under dry conditions.
Agriculture Canada research suggests that breeding initiatives should focus on increasing the oil content of the crop.
Researchers are hoping to improve plant stands and create broadleaf weed control options.
They are also focusing research on on the plant’s fertility requirements.
Coles said the ability to plant and harvest the crop outside of the regular growing season makes camelina attractive for producers.
“Anything that spreads the farm work into less critical times of the year. Seeding in November for instance or harvest in July, for instance, that adds value for farmers, making better use of equipment and manpower,” said Coles.
For 2008 there are about 10,000 acres of the crop being grown in Western Canada.
Researchers in Canada are looking at about 17 varieties of the crop, while American scientists are examining the potential of 10.
