Recently, I had the chance to tour a variety trial site for canola and camelina located north of Maxwell and part of a project headed by Nicholas George, a UC ANR scientist whose specialty is the evaluation and development of new and under-utilized crops, and Steve Kafka, an extension specialist on the UC-Davis campus and the director of the California Biomass Collaborative.

The trial is one of several located across the state. The work is funded by UC ANR and is trying to determine if canola and camelina are economically viable winter crop options for California growers and which varieties of each crop might be best adapted to California conditions. Often the price of canola moves inversely relative to the price of wheat, so planting one of these winter oilseed crops may serve as a diversification option for growers looking for a fall-seeded crop other than wheat.

Canola is grown extensively in Canada, Europe and Australia, where it is used as break-crop to diversify otherwise cereal-dominated cropping systems.  Canola is a multi-use crop that can be processed for food grade oil or for biodiesel, and as feeding ration for livestock (http://www.canolacouncil.org/media/516716/canola_meal_feed_guide_english.pdf). Camelina is not classified as an edible oil in the United States but produces oil of similar or better quality than canola. Of the two, canola has greater yield potential (in the range of 1500-2500lb/acre for canola vs 1000-1500lb/acre for camelina under California conditions) but uses more water. Canola has been trading around $450/ton on the futures market. The market for camelina is more regionalized and tends to be roughly pegged to biodiesel prices.

Seed cost for canola is high (around $10/lb) but it being a very small seeded crop, the seeding rate is low (6-12lb/acre). The trial pictured above was planted with 8 inch spacing at around 1cm depth in November. Growth would generally me more advanced but it was adversely affected by drought conditions over the winter. The site is organic rice ground therefore no herbicides were used.  On the topic of weed control, there has been concern about the potential for roundup ready varieties of canola becoming a glyphosate-resistant weed (see: http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=7123), however in other regions where it has been grown for a number of decades canola has not become a problematic weed of agricultural land or natural vegetation.

For more information on recent work on canola and camelina in California see this recent report: http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/FieldDay/2013/2013%20Field%20Day_Oilseeds%20Handout_Davis.pdf. Also, Nic and Steve will be present at the May 7^th Small Grain and Alfalfa Field Day at the UC-Davis agronomy research fields and will be present some of their work on these crops at that time (a picture of this trial is below). If you are interested in experimenting with one of these crops in the Sacramento Valley, give me a call or send me and email to discuss.