Boise, Idaho
May 4, 2007
He would call it a promising new
crop but it dates back at least as far as 1,500 B.C.
At the University of Idaho,
crop management specialist Stephen Guy says he's been conducting
agricultural experiments for 35 years and he's "never run across
a crop with as much potential for meeting our specific needs and
that's so well adapted to our region. It's exciting."
The crop is camelina (Camelina sativa) - a summer
annual oilseed that's a member of the mustard family and that
demands only modest levels of water and fertilizer. Not only is
it being explored as an environmentally healthy fuel but as a
human health-enhancing feed for fish, chickens and cattle
and-once the Food and Drug Administration declares it as
"generally recognized as safe"-as a heart-healthy food for
people.
Guy has been testing the omega-3 fatty acid rich crop in
northern Idaho since 2005. This year, colleagues in the Treasure
Valley and eastern Idaho are evaluating it as well.
At Soda Springs, Extension cereal crop systems agronomist Juliet
Windes thinks camelina might offer growers not only a profitable
rotation crop but a means to break pest cycles in minimum or
no-till dryland grain fields. "A lot of these areas have had 20
years of continuous barley," she says. "That's where a lot of
problems come in with barley mealybug and potentially with
fusarium footrot."
She'll compare two 90-day camelina varieties with wheat and
barley as the second-year crop in a three-year rotation where
barley is planted during the first and third years. "As far as
yields go, camelina should do better than canola in our
low-input systems," she says, "and it should promote higher
yield and better quality in the barley crop that follows it."
In the Treasure Valley, where the summer heat goes on long after
the barley comes off, Brad Brown is investigating camelina's
usefulness as a "relay" crop. He'll examine its performance when
it's sowed by itself or between 14-inch barley rows at three
different times during the barley-growing season: at barley
planting, at barley tillering and at barley boot state-just
before heading. "The idea is to take off barley as one crop and,
in the same season, take off camelina as well," Brown says. "It
would be nice to get two crops instead of just one, even if we
only get a half-crop of camelina. We have a lot of heat units at
the end of the season which aren't used to grow anything except
volunteer grain."
Brown will also test safflower, sunflower and soybeans as relay
crops with barley.
In northern Idaho, Guy has planted camelina variety trials at
Moscow and Greencreek and is evaluating the crop's fertilizer
needs. He's also comparing seeding methods to determine just how
simply and inexpensively camelina can be sowed. So far, just
tossing it out and packing it down looks perfectly plausible, he
says. "It grows really, really well, anyway that we seed it." It
also withstands frost and, reportedly, higher flowering-time
temperatures than canola. And, unlike canola and oriental and
yellow mustards, it hasn't yet hosted aphids or flea beetles-a
potential $20 per acre savings. "There are several ways that it
might be a more economical crop for us to grow," Guy says.
Producer Eric Wassmuth, Guy's cooperator at Greencreek, is
looking for a third crop in his rotation to replace canola.
"Canola is a breakeven crop, if you're lucky," Wassmuth says.
"It's tough to make money off of that." Wassmuth also runs an
oilseed-crushing operation on the Camas Prairie and hopes
camelina can eventually feed it.
"What we need in order to stimulate and sustain biodiesel
production in the Pacific Northwest is to have feedstocks to put
into it that we can afford to grow," Guy says. "I think that
camelina might be the crop that meets those goals." The camelina
varieties with the greatest potential for biodiesel won't be the
very same varieties with the highest levels of omega-3 fatty
acids, but Guy says enough interest has been sparked regionally
by Montana's Great Plains Oil and Exploration Company that
numerous variety trials are ongoing.
Duane Johnson, that firm's vice president of agricultural
development, describes the current potential for camelina in the
biodiesel industry as "huge" and says Great Plains will likely
expand contracted acreage into Idaho in the next year or two.
"The [growing] conditions that we see here in Montana and in
some of the drier areas of Idaho are not that different,"
Johnson says, "and I think that's where we saw the
opportunities."
Founded in 1889, the University of Idaho is the state's
flagship higher-education institution and its principal graduate
education and research university, bringing insight and
innovation to the state, the nation and the world. University
researchers attract more than $100 million in research grants
and contracts each year; the University of Idaho is the only
institution in the state to earn the prestigious Carnegie
Foundation ranking for high research activity. The university's
student population includes first-generation college students
and ethnically diverse scholars. Its high academic performers
include 42 National Merit Scholars and a 2006-07 freshman class
with an average high school grade point average of 3.42.
Offering more than 150 degree options in 10 colleges, the
university combines the strengths of a large university with the
intimacy of small learning communities. For information, visit
www.uidaho.edu. |
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