Agronomic evaluation of camelina genotypes selected for seed quality characteristics

Camelina is an under-utilised Brassicaceae oilseed crop with promising food and non-food applications due to an unusual fatty acid composition of its seed oil. Therefore, high oil content and other seed quality characteristics are important to enhance the attractiveness of the camelina crop both for growers and processors. As information about genetic improvement of camelina seed quality features is very limited, advanced breeding lines previously selected for large 1000-seed weight, increased oil content or particular fatty acid concentration were evaluated for agronomic performance in different environments in the east of Austria. Grain yields of up to 2800 kg ha−1 and seed oil contents of up to 480 g kg−1 were found in particular entries. However, large-seeded camelina genotypes with 1000-seed weight of up to 1.81 g were inferior to small seeded genotypes in terms of yield performance and oil content due to the presence of negative correlations; therefore, large-seeded genotypes appear to be of limited agronomic value only. Moreover, significant genetic variation between genotypes was found in linolenic and erucic acid concentrations, which are also subject to considerable modification by environmental conditions; linolenic acid was in the broad range from 25 to 42% of total fatty acids, whereas erucic acid concentration was low ranging from 2 to 6%. The results suggest that variation in agronomic and seed quality characters of camelina would clearly allow for an improvement of grain yield and oil content, whereas progress towards increased seed weight would be slow.