Camelina is growing in popularity in the dry West as a new oil seed for biodiesel. I just got back from a trip to the University of Idaho, where I saw field trials of this new crop. No tillage required! Just broadcast the seed on top of frozen ground and up it pops! Very little water is required, so it would work very good in my area. They gave me a pound of seed, and I sprinkled some in a small spot in my garden, and it popped out in 3 days! I've never seen seed grow so fast! I may try planting a 10 acre plot this winter if I can get the seed. Here is some more info on this new crop: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/p...93/v2-314.html

Wheatina, Have you heard of this?

 

Yes Don, I am aware of Camelina. We went to a local Wash. State Univ. field day in Lind about a month ago where they had a plot of Camelina. Looks very promising for dry areas like ours. This is something that just might work for CRP ground.

However, it appears Camelina has a high Iodine content that may stop it from being used widely. Here is an interesting link about that subject....

http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/b...ne/011500.html

At the same time, what about blending it with a lower iodine content oils to reduce overall iodine content? I think there is a future for it either way. The plant breeders can probably breed out that high iodine content. It is also a high Omega-3 content oil, which is great for heath benefits.

I wandered around in the WSU plot for a long time looking for insects or disease on the plants and there was absolutely nothing to be found. It was amazing. Our canola had a lot of aphids on the tips at this same time, so I was surprised to see nothing in the Camelina. The canola was also loaded with Labybug adults and larva, which was great to see. We didn't worry about the aphids on the tips since it was so late in the season and they only inpact the tips. I think next year I'll try releasing a bunch of ladybugs and lacewings in our fields early in the season to try to keep down the numbers of aphids seen at the end of the season.

Have you harvested your canola?? We'll probably start this weekend on ours with this heatwave coming in. I'll let you know how this canola "pushing" option worked out for us. I'll also try to get a video of the process up on the net...don't have the cable I need to do that right now.