Yield10 Bioscience starts field tests of winter camelina varieties

In Massachusetts, Yield10 Bioscience, Inc., an agricultural bioscience company, began field testing to evaluate the emergence and agronomics of winter Camelina sativa varieties. The testing of these winter varieties in the 2020/2021 winter season is part of Yield10’s continued development of Camelina sativa in the medium term for use at commercial scale as a cash cover crop for North America.

Having previously evaluated the Camelina sativa winter varieties in 2019/2020, Yield10 continues to pursue commercial efforts to leverage its technology in the potential high growth cash cover crop market. Cover crops are becoming increasingly important to improve the sustainability of food production by improving soil health, reducing unwanted leaching of nutrients into the water supply, and enhancing economic returns for the farmer.

The objectives of the study are to determine the seed and oil yield potential of winter Camelina varieties, and to scale up certain plant lines to support conducting larger studies. The field tests will evaluate the best performing wild-type and doubled haploid lines from the 2019/2020 winter season. Doubled haploid Camelina lines are expected to have more uniform and stable performance, making them attractive as a foundation for Camelina development and insertion of Yield10’s performance and product traits.