With the North American 2023 growing season on the horizon, growers are looking to solidify decisions for this year’s production. Increased costs for fertilizer, seed and fuel are top-of-mind for many operations, in addition to drier conditions and issues pertaining to pest and disease.
Agricultural bioscience company Yield10 Bioscience has announced its 2023 enrollment program to contract the production of camelina, offering growers more options this season. Growers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho and Minnesota will have access to Yield10’s contracts for spring and winter varieties of the crop. Through this offering to growers, the company hopes to continue its initiative to create “pre-commercial production and off-take relationships in the biofuels market” to meet the world’s increasing demand for biofuels and help to mitigate climate change, according to a release.
With the grower contracts currently presented by Yield10, up-front costs for seed are not required and a guaranteed minimum revenue per acre is provided.
“We look forward to engaging with farmers in the U.S. and Canada to ramp up experience with camelina and to drive widespread commercial adoption of this promising new oilseed crop,” commented Darren Greenfield, senior director of seed operations for Yield10 Bioscience.
In 2022, the company focused on the development and testing of herbicide tolerant camelina varieties, allowing the utilization of over-the-top broad leaf weed control, which it will continue to pursue this year. This initiative was created with the goal of providing a powerful herbicide tolerance package to growers, enabling them to plant larger acreage of camelina — a crucial piece in order to meet the demand in the biofuel market for feedstock oil, continued the release.
For more information, visit Yield10’s growers page here.
