Camelina Oil Produces in Australia

SYDNEY - Oct 2/06 - SNS -- A small quantity of camelina was successfully grown in the state of Western Australia during the past season.

The seed was cold crushed to produce an oil for export to Europe for use in the food and cosmetics industries, while the meal will be used domestically as race-horse feed.

The planting seed came from the Vavilov Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. Th first plots grown in Australia were on 25 hectares of land at John Thomas' Dowerin farm and produced 19 metric tons (MT) of seed that was cold crushed at Riverland Oilseed Processors in Pinjarra.

Thomas grew camelina as part of a Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA) project and plans to grow it again this year. He advises future camelina growers to "find a good patch of land" with very low broadleaf weed pressure.

"It grows on sandy soils and the fertilizer regime is similar to canola, however it's still in the trial stages and the growing and harvesting processes need to be refined," Thomas said.

His camelina crop produced a 42% oil content and he was paid a similar price to canola.

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