North America
March 31, 2023
As a member of the brassica family, carinata has some familiar relatives including canola, turnips, radishes, and mustards. This not-so-humble non-food crop is something of a new golden child for a world looking to sequester carbon and invest sustainable fuel sources.
In the U.S., Nuseed Carinata is grown between main crop rotations for lower carbon feedstock to replace fossil fuels and reduce emissions. The program’s carbon savings will also be an advantage to local governments and companies working towards carbon reduction targets and policies.
As the aviation industry increases its sustainability targets, and therefore its dependence on renewable jet fuels, market demand for advanced fuels is expected to grow.
Listed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as having similar greenhouse gas savings as top performing feedstocks, primarily waste and used cooking oil, Nuseed Carinata is recognized as a comparable carbon reduction sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) feedstock with the advantage of scalable, certified sustainable production. This has unlocked new market channels for the crop and new contract production opportunities for growers.
Market Development
This past year marked the launch of contract production of Nuseed Carinata in the United States. Grown as a cover crop, its oilseed harvested then crushed for lower carbon oil feedstock and a high protein meal co-product for feed, gives flexibility for use as a cover and cash crop with the contract offered by Nuseed.
6 Gen Ag Services Owner, Independent Agronomist and Nuseed Carinata Agent, De Broughton explains, “In Florida, carinata fits great with our system as it is hard to get good nutrients and water retention in our sandy soil, it breaks up the monotony of the same crop year after year, and, adds back biodiversity to the soil.”
From field to oil, Nuseed Carinata is delivering added value to growers, processors, and end-users.
New Carinata Research for the Future
While Nujet 400 is currently the flagship hybrid for contract production, Nuseed is hard at work developing new hybrids. Logan Dyer, a R&D Agronomist for Nuseed, says the major focus now is targeting increased frost tolerance and yields.
“We want to look at our hybrids having stable yields on low input fields,” he says. “With that, we were able to put out the world’s first carinata hybrid, Nujet 400, and we have a few more in the pipeline that continues to focus on that high yield and frost tolerance.”
In addition, Dyer says they’re looking at focusing on lodging resistance. Further down the pipeline, herbicide tolerance is also becoming a high-priority item.
“We’re looking at herbicide tolerance primarily for carryover from peanut and cotton being grown before — we want it to fit into that rotation really well,” he adds.
Early maturity is another trait that’s becoming more important, as Dyer notes that early maturity allows the crop to get in and out of the field at a faster rate. The goal is to have the Carinata mature earlier so growers can continue to get their cotton or peanut crop planted in time.
“Right now, we have about 50 trials going on through the southeast and Texas,” Dyer says. “Some of our main trials are going to be planting date trials, where we have different varieties being planted earlier than what we recommend and later than recommended to see how we can handle frost, how we can make a comeback and what our yields are going to be.”
Dyer says if you had to rank the current focuses of Nuseed Carinata research, it would be:
- Frost tolerance
- Shorter maturity
- Herbicide tolerance
In 2023 and beyond, Nuseed Carinata will continue to expand contract grower support for rapidly growing commercial programs in the Southern U.S. and in South America. This in combination with Nuseed R&D teams in Australia and Europe working locally to advance development programs.
Interested in learning more about the program?
Learn more here: https://nuseed.com/us/crop/carinata/
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