The oilseed crop Camelina sativa has great potential in numerous sustainable applications, but requires genetic improvement through novel approaches in order for this to be realised, say Italian researchers.
Oil from the crop, part of the brassica family, has shown potential be used as food, feed or a biofuel. It can be grown on marginal land with few inputs, and is resistant to most pests affecting other plants from the family.
Writing in the journal Plants, the scientists noted that C. sativa could be suitable for use in double-cropping, where two crops are grown in the same field over a year, or relay cropping, where a crop is seeded into a field growing a standing crop. However, at present, low seed yields, high yield variability between cultivars in particular as well as secondary metabolites produced by the plants are holding it back from such applications.
Plant breeding techniques have to date fallen short of bringing about sufficient genetic improvement to the species, they said. This is due to limited genetic variability between cultivars, its self-pollinating nature and the composition of its genome making mutations difficult.
Using advanced breeding techniques
Despite setbacks, there remain a number of modern approaches that show promise for inducing the desired changes in C. sativa, they said. These include using genetic engineering methods such as infection with Agrobacterium tumefaciens to transfer genes, laboratory cell cultures or RNA interference.
Gene-editing using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique offers another possibility due to its accuracy and time-efficiency compared to other options, they explained. The approach also allows easier manipulation of the complex genome of the plant. To illustrate this, they cited a number of gene-editing research projects which altered the nutritional profile and quality of the crop’s seeds.
“Development of populations from crosses between winter and spring types of C. sativa, combined with leveraging next-generation sequencing technologies to identify genetic factors associated with, for example, freezing tolerance, flowering, yield, seed oil quantity and quality, are needed,” they wrote.
Legislation changes may overcome barriers
Although they went on to note that EU restrictions may hold back progressing gene-edited Camelina into the mainstream of sustainable feed and food, more recently, there have been moves to change the rules around crop types produced using genomic technologies. This may open the door to improving this crop, as well as others, in a way that could be applied in fields, particularly in Europe and America.
“New breeding programs and molecular genetics studies will allow us to achieve real use of this crop in our environment, promoting the rethinking of new, appropriate cropping systems, and moving into an era of climate-smart agriculture,” the researchers added.
