Winter camelina survived Thunder Bay winter and is growing well at LUARS Dr. Tarlok Singh Sahota CCA

Winter camelina survived Thunder Bay winter and is growing well at LUARS

Dr. Tarlok Singh Sahota CCA

Lakehead University Agricultural Research Station (LUARS, formerly TBARS) Thunder Bay has always been looking for new opportunities for its area producers and attempted to test new crops and products. Last fall, we seeded winter camelina, which is an oil seed crop from the mustard family. We seeded winter camelina in a date of seeding experiment at 10 days interval from August 15 to October 5, 2023 to find out its optimum time of seeding under our agro climatic conditions. The crop survived Thunder Bay winter under all seeding dates, is growing well and is now at full bloom stage as at June 5, 2024 (see picture).

I got its seed from Christina Eynck, Research Scientist, Oilseed Breeding for Biofuels and Bioproducts, AAFC Saskatoon. As per Eynck, it is a short-season crop, possesses very good frost tolerance in the seedling stage and the full-grown plants exhibit good drought tolerance. It is resistant to flea beetles and black leg disease. Pod shattering is not an issue in camelina; therefore, it can be straight cut. Camelina seeds should be harvested when 80-90% of pods are mature, that is yellow to grayish-brown in colour. Seeds must be dried to 8% to 9% seed moisture to maintain seed quality. The average oil content of winter camelina cultivar Joelle is 40-41%.

Winter camelina flowers earlier than other crops, and even earlier than most spring-flowering wild plants. Consequently, its flowers are prized by many native pollinators as well as honey bees. Camelina flowers provide abundant pollen and nectar for them. Late August to mid September is considered an optimum window for seeding winter camelina in the Prairies. From our experiment, we will know what is the optimum time of its seeding at Thunder Bay.

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