Winter camelina: A new oilseed crop for Minnesota

 Matt Leavitt, Agronomy specialist, UMN Forever Green

You may have read about the small seed making a big stir in Minnesota, winter camelina. Winter camelina is a winter-annual broadleaf oilseed crop in the mustard family (Brassicaceae). 

Its small seed size and excellent winter hardiness across all of Minnesota makes it a useful and economical cover crop alone or in mixture with other species, like winter rye.

It is also increasingly in demand as a biofuel feedstock with unique properties for low carbon jet fuel. In fact, the first airplane fueled in part by sustainable aviation fuel took off from MSP airport on September 24 marking a dramatic step forward for Minnesota-grown renewable biofuels.

Cargill is making significant investments in winter camelina as a crop in the upper Midwest, piloting 2000 acres in Minnesota & North Dakota in 2023-2024 and offering contracts to significantly expand acres in 2024-2025 across Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Winter camelina is under intensive development by the University of Minnesota Forever Green Initiative, a comprehensive agricultural innovation platform developing over a dozen new profitable perennial and winter annual crops for upper Midwestern agriculture.

The How-Tos of Camelina

Seed: Varieties ‘Joelle’ or ‘Dakota Early Riser’ can be sourced from Millborn Seed, Albert Lea Seed and other regional seed retailers. Be sure to specify winter camelina seed.

Planting: Winter camelina can be drilled or no-till drilled at narrow spacing (6 to 7.5 inches) or broadcast & rolled with traditional planting equipment.

Planting Date: Ideally winter camelina should be planted September 20 to October 15 at 8 to10 lbs/acre.

Rosette stage of winter camelina (early April)

Bolting stage of winter camelina (early May)

Initial flowering stage of winter camelina (mid-May)

Harvested winter camelina seed (late June-early July). Photos courtesy of Russ Gesch, USDA-ARS

Harvest: Winter camelina is typically harvested from late-June to early-July in Minnesota (mid-July to late-July in far Northern Minnesota), opening opportunities for growing a second crop in the same season. Camelina can be harvested with a typical soybean header. However, due to its small seed size, equipment adjustments are necessary and investing in a small grains kit & screens for your combine will aid in harvest.

Fertility: The crop requires 40 to 60 lbs N/acre for maximum yield potential, applied in the spring. Typical grain yield range is 800 to 1200 lbs/acre. You should also ensure adequate phosphorus is available.

Preceding Crops: Winter camelina is a good fit after small grains, silage corn, canning crops, soybeans, dry beans, sunflowers, or forages. It is not recommended to follow grain corn since camelina struggles to emerge through heavy residue.

Following Crops: Several cash crops can be planted post-harvest or relay-planted into an established camelina crop like early maturing soybeans, dry beans, sunflowers, buckwheat, millet, canning crops, forage crops or winter grains.

Site Selection: Winter camelina prefers well-drained fields. The crop does not like wet feet and poorly drained acres.

Weed Control: There are few herbicides labeled for use on winter camelina, but it is generally very competitive with weeds with good stands. Winter camelina is susceptible to carryover chemistry so watch herbicide rotational restrictions and check labels.

Marketing: Cargill is actively contracting acres for Fall 2024. Follow this link for more information or reach out to Anna Teeter with Cargill (Anna_Teeter@cargill.com).

Future directions: Relay-cropping, breeding, and crop expansion

Winter camelina prepped for relay planting. St. Paul, MN. April 2024

Winter camelina’s early harvest date allows for unique opportunities to relay- or double-crop soybeans or other crops following harvest, allowing for two harvestable crop yields in one season. There has been significant research on this system from both NDSU and USDA-ARS in Morris, Minnesota. However, grower adoption has so far been limited in part by a lack of available crop insurance and a reduction in yield potential of the following soybeans crop.

Figure 1. Although research has shown that soybean yield was reduced when relay-cropped with winter camelina, overall oil yield production across the two crops was 50% greater in the relay-crop system compared to the monocrop of soybean. Russ Gesch, USDA-ARS. Data from Gesch, RW, DW Archer and MT Berti. 2014. Dual cropping winter camelina with soybean in the northern corn belt. Agron. J. 106

One of the key ways that UMN will continue to explore the viability of this system is through continued breeding and development efforts on new, early maturing camelina genetics. New varietal candidates are going through the early stages of seed reproduction and there is potential for an earlier maturing variety (maturing up to 1 week earlier than current available genetics) to reach the market in 2 to 3 years. There is also significant industry investment in agronomic research on winter camelina and multi-crop systems. Cargill has invested $2.5 million in the UMN Forever Green Initiative over the next 5 years to explore agronomic research and variety development for winter oilseeds.

To learn more about winter camelina and other new and emerging winter annual & perennial crops, check out the UMN Forever Green Initiative website.

For More Information

Matt Leavitt : Agronomy Specialist. University of Minnesota Forever Green
612-381-6199 , leav0046@umn.edu

Anna Teeter : Novel Oilseeds Program Manager. Cargill
262-951-1400 , Anna_Teeter@cargill.com