Tillage intensity and compost application effects on organically grown camelina productivity, seed and oil quality

Abstract

The importance of Camelina sativa has lessened substantially over the last half century, however its unique oil composition and the beneficial agronomic attributes with regard to sustainable agriculture have recently reignited interest in this oilseed crop. Notwithstanding the great interest in camelina, the potential to be cultivated organically has not received prominent attention from researchers. The objective of this study was to evaluate the response of organic camelina to different tillage systems and compost types, based on differences in yield parameters, oil content, seed crude protein and fatty acid profile. The field experiments, conducted during the 2014, 2015 and 2016 growing seasons, were laid out in a split plot design with three replicates, two main plots (conventional tillage and minimum tillage) and three sub-plots (vermicompost, compost, unamended control). It is consequential from the results that the effect of the type of organic amendment was highly significant on camelina’s productivity. Particularly, compost treatment resulted in higher seed and oil yield (1132 and 446 kg ha^-1, respectively) compared to the vermicompost (682 and 269 kg ha^-1, respectively) and the unamended control (554 and 220 kg ha^-1, respectively). Regarding the fatty acid profile, both organic amendments increased linoleic and palmitic acids, while they presented disparate effects on a-linolenic acid. Furthermore, tillage system influenced significantly only thousand seeds weight, protein content and gondoic acid, enabling the use of reduced tillage to be comparably effective on organically grown camelina performance. Further experimentation is needed to match crop needs with the appropriate cropping techniques in order to ensure an effective organic cultivation.