A crop with big potential: Brassica carinata

Brassica carinata is a unique oilseed crop with vast industrial potential. While technically a member of the mustard family, carinata has a distinctive oil profile that makes it a great candidate for bioproducts and biofuels. When carinata seeds are crushed to extract the oil, a high-protein meal remains as a by-product which can be used as an animal feed.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) researchers Isobel Parkin and Christina Eynck are the principal investigators on this Diverse Field Crops Cluster activity. They are working with co-investigator, Rick Bennett from Nuseed Canada to maximize the usefulness of this distinctive crop.

Parkin is developing tools and resources that will make breeding more efficient, while Eynck and Bennett are focused on developing traits that will make carinata more economically viable for consumers and producers.

“The idea is to provide the tools and germplasm to develop carinata as a new Prairie crop,” Parkin says. “It has been somewhat neglected as an oilseed crop and it’s only in the last few years that breeders have started to really focus on carinata crop improvement.”

Nuseed is investing in carinata breeding. “As a company we see great value in carinata as a biofuel-feedstock platform,” Bennett says. “The value is there, and we are realizing it. It’s just a matter of coming up with varieties and tools that help us keep momentum.”

The carinata industry has taken off, especially in South America where producers are interested in seeing higher yielding carinata hybrids enter the market. According to Bennett, hybrids will increase yield potential significantly, compared to the current open-pollinated varieties. They are more vigorous and may be able to withstand or recover from stress events (such as frosts) more favorably.

“The movement to hybrids is happening quite quickly, which is exciting. It’s very important for this crop to maximize its potential,” Parkin says.

Hybrid parental line development – specifically the restorer line – is the real emphasis of the project. Eynck’s research team developed diverse ‘restorer lines’ (used to restore the fertility in a hybrid after crossing with a male sterile plant) which are being evaluated in a series of new test hybrids by Nuseed.

For the development of germplasm with specific traits, the AAFC breeding program focuses on interspecific hybridization, a process that crosses two genetically divergent individuals from the same genus. Carinata shares one ancestor with canola and another with condiment mustard, which means that it shares one genome with each of these crops.

“It makes it really nice to transfer traits from the other crops into carinata,” Eynck says, “We used interspecific hybridization to develop carinata hybrids with specific traits of interest for the industry.”

Long-chain fatty acids are the main components in an oilseed crop that determines its value as a biofuel. Erucic acid is a very-long-chain fatty acid (22 Carbon length), and oils with higher erucic acid content are more energy dense. Brassica carinata naturally has high levels (greater than 40 per cent) of erucic acid in the oil. Work is currently underway to develop carinata varieties with super-high levels of erucic acid, which may open up additional markets for oil co-products (in additional to renewable diesel).

Another project that used interspecific hybridization introduced clubroot resistance into carinata from Brassica nigra. Clubroot is common in canola and can affect many crops in the Brassica family. It is caused by a pathogenic protist called Plasmodiophora brassicae.

“Clubroot is a devastating disease in canola. We have been able to transfer clubroot-resistance genes into carinata that confer resistance to a broad range of clubroot pathogen races,” Eynck says.

Another area of research is the reduction of glucosinolate levels in carinata. Carinata makes a good livestock feed because of its high protein levels. But unlike canola, carinata contains medium to high levels of glucosinolates which are sulfur-containing compounds that can have negative health effects in livestock. Reducing the glucosinolates will make the meal even more valuable as a feed ingredient.

“The end users are excited about that too,” Bennett says.

Written by Erin Matthews

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This DFCC research activity is led by Mustard 21 Canada Inc with funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership program, Mustard 21 Canada Inc, Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission, Canadian Mustard Association and Nuseed Canada Inc.

The Diverse Field Crops Cluster (DFCC) is a unique alliance of industry partners: Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, Canary Seed Development Commission of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission, Smart Earth Camelina Corporation, Manitoba Crop Alliance, Mustard 21 Canada Inc, and Northern Quinoa Production Corporation. DFCC aligns industry and research stakeholders to seize market opportunities and accelerate the acreage and market returns of special crops. Ag-West Bio leads this five-year research cluster which is funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership program and industry partners.