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Optimal and Suitable Conditions for Prospective Spring Camelina Cultivation in Slovakia – Screening by the System of Soil Climatic Units

Optimal and Suitable Conditions for Prospective Spring Camelina Cultivation in Slovakia –... Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 DOI: 10.2478/agri-2021-0004 Short communication OPTIMAL AND SUITABLE CONDITIONS FOR PROSPECTIVE SPRING CAMELINA CULTIVATION IN SLOVAKIA – SCREENING BY THE SYSTEM OF SOIL CLIMATIC UNITS 1,2* 3 Štefan Koco , Radoslav BujnovsKý National Agriculture and Food Centre, Lužianky, Slovak Republic University of Prešov, Prešov, Slovak Republic Association Energy, Leopoldov, Slovak Republic Koco, Š. and Bujnovský, R.: Optimal and suitable conditions for prospective spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia ‒ screening by the system of soil climatic units. Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67(1), 42 – 46. Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz], a recently rediscovered oil crop is becoming of interest to both industry and farmers due to its relatively wide use. The amount of camelina seed production is / will be influenced both by the demand from the industry and by the suitable conditions that allow its profitable cultivation. A preliminary insight on optimal part of the used arable land in Slovakia suitable for growing this crop was based on available information on the environmental requirements of camelina and the system of land evaluation units of agricultural soils. These data have been acquired from database managed and continuously updated by National Agriculture and Food Centre – Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute Bratislava. From this database information concerning the climatic region, slope, soil texture, soil depth, and skeleton content were used. The obtained results show that approximately 27% of the acreage of utilised arable land has optimal quality for spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia. If camelina will be used for the production of various biobased materials, on a smaller scale (several thousand hectares) it is possible to grow this crop without a significant restriction of the cultivation of other crops, especially those intended for food and feed production. In case of camelina utilisation as a feedstock for conventional biofuels production, it is necessary to take into account its competitiveness compared to oilseed rape, which is currently the main raw material for FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) production, both in terms of profitability of cultivation and CO emissions per tonne of oilseed yield. Key words: Camelina sativa (l.) crantz, climate conditions, soil conditions, suitability of cultivation Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] rep- vakia is optimal and suitable for growing this crop. resents the recently rediscovered oil crop which has The selection of soil and climatic conditions af- the potential to be used as a feedstock in biofuel fects the profitability of any crop cultivation. Re- production and also as the raw material for the pro- cently, due attention has been paid to investigate the duction of various bio-based materials. In addition, suitability of crop cultivation on agricultural land the camelina meal (a by-product of oil extraction) has been given due attention by research (e.g. Bowen can serve as a protein feed for farm animals (Eynck & Hollinger 2004; Vilček & Bedrna, 2007; Holz- & Falk 2013; Berti et al. 2016; Murphy et al. 2016). kämper et al. 2010; Koco et al. 2020). Reference The aim of the paper was to obtain a preliminary papers related to screening soil-climatic conditions insight of which part of the used arable land in Slo- suitable for camellia cultivation have been pub- RNDr. Štefan Koco, PhD. (*Corresponding author), National Agriculture and Food Centre ‒ Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Raymanova 1, 08001 Prešov, Slovak Republic. E-mail: stefan.koco@nppc.sk RNDr. Štefan Koco, PhD., Department of Geography and Applied Geoinformatics, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, 17. novembra 1, 08001 Prešov, Slovak Republic Ing. Radoslav Bujnovský, CSc., Association Energy 21, Trnavská cesta 1033, 920 41 Leopoldov © 2021 Authors. This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 42 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 lished by Falasca et al. (2014) and Román-Figueroa achieved higher yields (Aiken et al. 2015). In ad- et al. (2017). dition, in conditions where the area of arable land The screening of optimal and sustainable soil-cli- is constantly declining and its expansion at the ex- matic conditions for spring camelina cultivation pense of grassland or forest land is out of the ques- witjhin used arable land of Slovakia was – based on tion, regulated conventional intensification of crop available information on camelina’s environmen- production (as defined by Heaton et al. 2013) is tal requirements (Putnam et al. 1993; Zubr 1997; important. This fact was considered during the pro- Crowley & Fröhlich 1998; Strašil 2008; Falasca et jection of optimal and suitable conditions for the al. 2014; George et al. 2015; Román-Figueroa et al. cultivation of this crop in Slovakia where temporal 2017) and the system of land evaluation units – re- intensification of crop production is limited. ferred to as BPEJ – (Džatko, Sobocká et al. 2009), The setting of the optimal and suitable range of registered in the database managed and continuous- climatic indicators and soil properties for the culti- ly updated by the National Agriculture and Food vation of spring camelina in Slovakia is indicated in Centre – Soil Science and Conservation Research Table 1. The unsuitable category has not been con- Institute in Bratislava. sidered. Unlike the authors Vilček & Bedrna (2007), Camelina is well adapted to the areas where flax who used a 4-level classification of land suitability is grown (Putnam et al. 1993) and for this reason, it for growing crops (very suitable, suitable, less suit- is also referred to as “false flax”. This information able, and unsuitable), our attention was focused on is the starting point when defining the suitable con- the first two, while very suitable conditions are per - ditions for growing this crop. In this regard, accord- ceived as optimal. ing to Vilček & Bedrna (2007) the best conditions Regarding climatic conditions, the most import- for flax cultivation are locations with an altitude of ant are temperature and moisture. The temperature more than 400 m and the sum of annual total rain- is important both in terms of the sum of vegetatively fall greater than 600 mm. As for soils, the most suit- active temperatures (above 5°C) also expressed as able are sandy loam and loam soils with a neutral growing degree days (Miller et al. 2001; Krzyżaniak to slightly acidic soil reaction. Unsuitable are clay et al. 2019), and thus in terms of the length of the soils prone to crusting, stony soils, dry or, converse- growing season, as well as in terms of the occur- ly, wet, and land on slopes above 7°. rence of temperature extremes (especially tropical Although camelina is often considered as a less days with temperature over 30°C). Moisture is pri- demanding crop to site conditions and inputs (e.g. marily related to the sum of precipitation, especially Putnam et al. 1993; Zubr 1997; Strašil 2008), com- during the growing period. As stated by Holzkämper pared to marginal areas, in optimal conditions with et al. (2010), while the sufficient moisture is import - mild temperatures and adequate soil moisture are ant mainly for the vegetative phase of growth, the T a b l e 1 Definition of optimal and suitable environmental conditions for spring camelina cultivation from view of seed yield Suitable conditions Optimal Indicator conditions Dry Wet Climatic region* 02, 05, 06, 07 01, 03, 04 08 Slope < 3° < 7° 1 – 7° Soil texture** sl, l sl, l ls, sl, l Soil depth > 0.6 m > 0.31 m > 0.31 m Skeleton content < 10% < 10% < 25% *by Džatko, Sobocká et al. (2009); **LS – loamy sand; SL – sandy loam; L – loam 43 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 occurrence of tropical days affects the generative ing time. Therefore, extreme soil texture categories phase of crop growth. were primarily excluded from optimal and suitable Because spring camelina has a short vegetation conditions for camelina cultivation. period (up to 100 days), its cultivation in Slovakia is As the most part of the camelina root system practically not limited by the sum of physiological- occurs in the layer 0 ‒ 0.6 m (Putnam et al. 1993; ly active temperature. Temperature extremes, espe- Obour et al. 2015; Gesch & Johnson 2015), only cially temperatures above 30°C during the ripening deep (> 0.6 m) and medium-deep (0.31 ‒ 0.6 m) phase, can reduce the seed yields significantly (Aiken soils were considered as suitable for camelina cul- et al. 2015). Due to the elimination of the rainfall tivation. Because increased stone/gravel content, excess in humid and cold areas (BPEJ climate re- as well as slope over 7°, can reduce the crop yields gion codes 9 and 10) and due to the occurrence of (Vilček & Bedrna 2007), lands on the slope of up hot days in the warmest climatic region (climate re- to 7° without skeleton (< 10%) and weakly skeletal gion code 0), areas corresponding with mentioned soils (10 ‒ 25%) were classified as suitable (Table 1). climates are not included in the definition of suitable Based on the parameters listed in Table 1, ap- areas for camelina cultivation (Table 1). proximately 27% of the acreage of utilised arable As additional site indicators, the slope, soil tex- land can be considered as optimal and suitable for ture, soil depth, and skeleton content were taken into spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia. The spatial account. To some extent, soil texture corresponds distribution of these areas is shown in Figure 1. The with moisture (its retention and availability for root remaining area of utilised arable land is considered system). Loamy and sandy-loam soils are considered as less suitable and unsuitable for camelina cultiva- optimal for spring camelina cultivation. Suitable are tion. also loamy-sand soils, but their production potential As stated by Neupane et al. (2018), the main tends to be lower. Clearly unsuitable are clay and advantage of camelina as a feedstock for biofuel wet soils due to delays in entering the land for early production, in comparison to oilseed rape, is its cul- seeding (Sintim et al. 2016) which can affect the use tivation in conditions that are no more suitable for of winter moisture in the soil and subsequently also rapeseed. The areas, where camelina could be com- increase the likelihood of tropical days occurrence petitive to oilseed rape, which is currently the main during ripening as a consequence of a shift in sow- raw material for FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) Figure 1. Optimal and suitable areas for spring camelina cultivation within the utilised arable land of Slovakia 44 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 −46 ture and Food Systems, 19(3), 141 ‒ 151. DOI:10.1079/ production, were detected by overlapping of GIS RAFS200473. layer of optimal & suitable areas for camelina cul- Bujnovský, R., Holíčková, M. and Ondrejíčková, P. (2020). tivation (Figure 1) with a GIS layer of less suitable Spring Camelina sativa – Perspective cultivation as bio- fuel feedstock in Slovakia. Industrial Crops and Prod- & non-suitable areas for oilseed rape (developed by ucts, 154, 112634. DOI:10.1016/j.indcrop.2020.112634. Vilček & Bedrna 2007). These areas, scattered es- Chen, Ch., Bekkerman, A., Afshar, R.K. and Neil, K. (2015). Intensification of dryland cropping systems for bio-feed- pecially in the central and eastern part of Slovakia, stock production: Evaluation of agronomic and economic account for 15,000 ha. benefits of Camelina sativa. Industrial Crops and Prod- It is reasonable to assume that in terms of crop- ucts, 71, 114 ‒ 121. DOI:10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.02.065. Crowley, J.G. and Fröhlich, A. (1998). Factors affecting the ping area the camelina may belong to the supple- composition and use of camelina. Teagasc Project Report mentary oilseeds. Its cultivation for the production No. 4319. Dublin: Crop Research Centre, Teagasc, 19p. Džatko, M., Sobocká, J. et al. (2009). Guidance for the use of bio-based materials is practically possible within of maps of soil ecological units. Bratislava: Soil Science all areas defined in Figure 1. It’s just obvious that and Conservation Research Institute, 102p. (in Slovak). the economics of camelina cultivation as well as its Eynck, C. and Falk, K.C. (2013). Camelina (Camelina sati- va). In Singh, B.P. (Ed.) Biofuel crops: Production, phys- competitiveness to other oil crops with similar use st iology and genetics, 1 ed. Wallingford: CAB Interna- is / will be primarily affected by the market price tional, pp. 369 ‒ 391. Falasca, S.L., del Fresno, M.C. and Waldman, C. (2014). and seed yields per hectare (Chen et al. 2015; Li & Developing an agro-climatic zoning model to determine Mupondwa 2016; Righini et al. 2016). In the case potential growing areas for Camelina sativa in argen- of biofuel production, the situation is different. As tina. QScience Connect, 2014(1). DOI:10.5339/con- nect.2014.4. indicated by Krohl & Fripp (2012) and Bujnovský George, N., Hollingsworth, J., Levers, L., Thompson, S. and emissions per tonne of et al. (2020), decreasing CO Kaffka, S. (2015). Canola and camelina: winter annual oilseeds as alternative crops for California. University feedstock (which is part of the life cycle analysis of of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Re- the final biofuel), is a basic precondition of success. sources. Available at: https://ucanr.edu/sites/oilseeds/ From this point of view, it is necessary to reduce in- files/211682.pdf [Accessed 12.04.2021]. Gesch, R.W. and Johnson, J.M.F. (2015). Water use in came- puts (especially nitrogenous fertilisers) and increase lina–soybean dual cropping systems. Agronomy Journal, camelina seed yields, which basically represents 107(3), 1098 ‒ 1104. DOI:10.2134/agronj14.0626. Heaton, E., Schulte-Moore, L., Helmers, M., Liebman, M. the increase of inputs productivity. Preference for and Milster, F. (2013). Producing food, feed and energy: less humid conditions in the case of reducing CO th How can agriculture do it all? Proceedings of the 25 an- emissions from cultivation is also significant in this nual Integrated Crop Management Conference. Ames: Iowa State University, pp. 33 ‒ 47. regard. Holzkämper, A., Calanca, P. and Fuhrer, J. (2010). Evaluat- ing climate suitability for agriculture in Switzerland. In Swayane, D.A., Wanhong Yang, Voinov, A.A., Rizzoli, Funding A. and Filatova, T. (Eds.) Modelling for environmentʼs This work was supported by the CamelGreen (proj- sake: Proceeding of the iEMSs 2010 Conference. Otta- ect ID APVV-16-0097), USUS (project ID APVV- wa, Canada. Available at: https://www.iemss.org/publi- cations/conference/proceedings-of-the-iemss-2010-con- 15-0406) projects funded by Slovak Research and ference/ [Accessed 08.04.2021]. Scientific Grant Agency of Ministry of Education of Koco, Š., Vilček, J., Torma, S., Michaeli, E. and Solár, V. (2020). Optimising potato (Solanum tuberosum l.) culti- Slovak Republic under Grant No. VEGA 1/0059/19. vation by selection of proper soils. Agriculture, 10, 155. DOI:10.3390/agriculture10050155. Krohn, B.J. and Fripp, M. (2012). A life cycle assessment of biodiesel derived from the „niche filling“ energy crop RefeRences camelina in the USA. Applied Energy, 92, 92 ‒ 98. DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.10.025. Aiken, R., Baltensperger, D., Krall, J., Pavlista, A. and Krzyżaniak, M., Stolarski, M., Tworkowski, J., Puttick, D., Johnson, J. (2015). Planting methods affect emergence, Eynck, Ch., Załuski, D. and Kwiatkowski, J. (2019). flowering and yield of spring oilseed crops in the U.S. Yield and seed composition of top spring camelina gen- central High Plains. Industrial Crops and Products, 69, otypes cultivated in the temperate climate of Central 273 ‒ 277. DOI: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.02.025. Europe. Industrial Crops and Products, 138, 111443. Berti, M., Gesch, R., Eynck, Ch., Anderson, J. and Cermak, DOI:10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.06.006. S. (2016). Camelina uses, genetics, genomics, produc- Li, X. and Mupondwa, E. (2016). Production and value-chain tion, and management. Industrial Crops and Products, integration of Camelina sativa as dedicated bioenergy 94, 690 ‒ 710. DOI: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.09.034. feedstock in the Canadian prairies. In Faaij, A.P.C., Bax- Bowen, C.R. and Hollinger, S.E. (2004). Geographic screen- ter, D., Grassi, A. & Helm, P. (Eds.) Setting the course ing of potential alternative crops. Renewable Agricul- for a biobased economy: Papers of the 24th European 45 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 Biomass Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam 6‒9 Righini, D., Zanetti, F. and Monti, A. (2016). The bio-based June, pp. 151 ‒ 157. Available at: http://www.etaflorence. economy can serve as the springboard for camelina it/proceedings/?detail=12482 [Accessed 09.04.2021]. and crambe to quit the limbo. OCL, 23(5), D504. DOI: Miller, P., Lanier, W. and Brandt, S. (2001). Using grow- 10.1051/ocl/2016021. ing degree days to predict plant stages. Montguide Román-Figueroa, C., Padilla, R., Uribe, J.M. and Paneque, MT200103 AG 7/2001. Bozeman: Cooperative Exten- M. (2017). Land suitability assessment for camelina sion Service, Montana State University, 8p. Available (Camelina sativa L.) development in Chile. Sustainabili- at:https://landresources.monana.edu/soilfertility/doc- ty, 9, 154. DOI:10.3390/su9010154. uments/PDF/pub/GDDPlantStagesMT200103AG.pdf Sintim, H.Y., Zhelizjakov, V.D., Obour, A.K., Garcia, A.G. [Accessed 09.04.2021]. and Foulke, Th.K. (2016). Evaluating agronomic re- Murphy, E.J. (2016). Camelina (Camelina sativa). In McKeon, sponses of camelina to seeding date under rain-fed con- Th., Hayes, D., Hildenbrand, D. & Weselake, R. (Eds.) ditions. Agronomy Journal, 108(1), 349 ‒ 357. DOI: st Industrial oil crops, 1 ed. Amsterdam: AOCS, Urbana – 10.2134/agronj2015.0153. Elsevier Inc., pp. 207 ‒ 230. Strašil, Z. (2008). Basics of camelia cultivation and possibil- Neupane, D., Solomon, J.K.Q., Davison, J. and Lawry, T. ities of its use. Guideline for practice. Prague: Research (2018). Nitrogen source and rate effects on grain and po- Institute of Crop Production, 21p. (in Czech). tential biodiesel production of camelina in the semiarid Vilček, J. and Bedrna, Z. (2007). Suitability of agricultural environment of northern Nevada. CGB Bioenergy, 10, soils and landscape of Slovakia for growing of plants. 861 – 876. Bratislava: Soil Science and Conservation Research In- Obour, A.K., Sintim, H.Y., Obeng, E. and Jelizjakov, V.D. stitute, 244p. (in Slovak). (2015). Oilseed Camelina (Camelina sativa L. Crantz): Zubr, J. (1997). Oil-seed crop: Camelina sativa. Industri- Production systems, prospects and challenges in the USA al Crops and Products, 6(2) , 113 ‒ 119. DOI:10.1016/ Great Plains. Advances in Plants and Agricultural Re- S0926-6690(96)00203-8. search, 2(2), 00043. DOI: 10.15406/apar.2015.02.00043. Received: April 29, 2021 Putnam, D.H., Budin, J.T., Field, L.A. and Breene, W.M. Accepted: June 3, 2021 (1993). Camelina: A promising low-input oilseed. In Jan- ick, J. & Simon, J.E. (Eds.) New crops. New York: Wiley, pp. 314 ‒ 322. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Agriculture de Gruyter

Optimal and Suitable Conditions for Prospective Spring Camelina Cultivation in Slovakia – Screening by the System of Soil Climatic Units

Agriculture , Volume 67 (1): 5 – Apr 1, 2021

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Abstract

Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 DOI: 10.2478/agri-2021-0004 Short communication OPTIMAL AND SUITABLE CONDITIONS FOR PROSPECTIVE SPRING CAMELINA CULTIVATION IN SLOVAKIA – SCREENING BY THE SYSTEM OF SOIL CLIMATIC UNITS 1,2* 3 Štefan Koco , Radoslav BujnovsKý National Agriculture and Food Centre, Lužianky, Slovak Republic University of Prešov, Prešov, Slovak Republic Association Energy, Leopoldov, Slovak Republic Koco, Š. and Bujnovský, R.: Optimal and suitable conditions for prospective spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia ‒ screening by the system of soil climatic units. Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67(1), 42 – 46. Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz], a recently rediscovered oil crop is becoming of interest to both industry and farmers due to its relatively wide use. The amount of camelina seed production is / will be influenced both by the demand from the industry and by the suitable conditions that allow its profitable cultivation. A preliminary insight on optimal part of the used arable land in Slovakia suitable for growing this crop was based on available information on the environmental requirements of camelina and the system of land evaluation units of agricultural soils. These data have been acquired from database managed and continuously updated by National Agriculture and Food Centre – Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute Bratislava. From this database information concerning the climatic region, slope, soil texture, soil depth, and skeleton content were used. The obtained results show that approximately 27% of the acreage of utilised arable land has optimal quality for spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia. If camelina will be used for the production of various biobased materials, on a smaller scale (several thousand hectares) it is possible to grow this crop without a significant restriction of the cultivation of other crops, especially those intended for food and feed production. In case of camelina utilisation as a feedstock for conventional biofuels production, it is necessary to take into account its competitiveness compared to oilseed rape, which is currently the main raw material for FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) production, both in terms of profitability of cultivation and CO emissions per tonne of oilseed yield. Key words: Camelina sativa (l.) crantz, climate conditions, soil conditions, suitability of cultivation Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] rep- vakia is optimal and suitable for growing this crop. resents the recently rediscovered oil crop which has The selection of soil and climatic conditions af- the potential to be used as a feedstock in biofuel fects the profitability of any crop cultivation. Re- production and also as the raw material for the pro- cently, due attention has been paid to investigate the duction of various bio-based materials. In addition, suitability of crop cultivation on agricultural land the camelina meal (a by-product of oil extraction) has been given due attention by research (e.g. Bowen can serve as a protein feed for farm animals (Eynck & Hollinger 2004; Vilček & Bedrna, 2007; Holz- & Falk 2013; Berti et al. 2016; Murphy et al. 2016). kämper et al. 2010; Koco et al. 2020). Reference The aim of the paper was to obtain a preliminary papers related to screening soil-climatic conditions insight of which part of the used arable land in Slo- suitable for camellia cultivation have been pub- RNDr. Štefan Koco, PhD. (*Corresponding author), National Agriculture and Food Centre ‒ Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Raymanova 1, 08001 Prešov, Slovak Republic. E-mail: stefan.koco@nppc.sk RNDr. Štefan Koco, PhD., Department of Geography and Applied Geoinformatics, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, 17. novembra 1, 08001 Prešov, Slovak Republic Ing. Radoslav Bujnovský, CSc., Association Energy 21, Trnavská cesta 1033, 920 41 Leopoldov © 2021 Authors. This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 42 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 lished by Falasca et al. (2014) and Román-Figueroa achieved higher yields (Aiken et al. 2015). In ad- et al. (2017). dition, in conditions where the area of arable land The screening of optimal and sustainable soil-cli- is constantly declining and its expansion at the ex- matic conditions for spring camelina cultivation pense of grassland or forest land is out of the ques- witjhin used arable land of Slovakia was – based on tion, regulated conventional intensification of crop available information on camelina’s environmen- production (as defined by Heaton et al. 2013) is tal requirements (Putnam et al. 1993; Zubr 1997; important. This fact was considered during the pro- Crowley & Fröhlich 1998; Strašil 2008; Falasca et jection of optimal and suitable conditions for the al. 2014; George et al. 2015; Román-Figueroa et al. cultivation of this crop in Slovakia where temporal 2017) and the system of land evaluation units – re- intensification of crop production is limited. ferred to as BPEJ – (Džatko, Sobocká et al. 2009), The setting of the optimal and suitable range of registered in the database managed and continuous- climatic indicators and soil properties for the culti- ly updated by the National Agriculture and Food vation of spring camelina in Slovakia is indicated in Centre – Soil Science and Conservation Research Table 1. The unsuitable category has not been con- Institute in Bratislava. sidered. Unlike the authors Vilček & Bedrna (2007), Camelina is well adapted to the areas where flax who used a 4-level classification of land suitability is grown (Putnam et al. 1993) and for this reason, it for growing crops (very suitable, suitable, less suit- is also referred to as “false flax”. This information able, and unsuitable), our attention was focused on is the starting point when defining the suitable con- the first two, while very suitable conditions are per - ditions for growing this crop. In this regard, accord- ceived as optimal. ing to Vilček & Bedrna (2007) the best conditions Regarding climatic conditions, the most import- for flax cultivation are locations with an altitude of ant are temperature and moisture. The temperature more than 400 m and the sum of annual total rain- is important both in terms of the sum of vegetatively fall greater than 600 mm. As for soils, the most suit- active temperatures (above 5°C) also expressed as able are sandy loam and loam soils with a neutral growing degree days (Miller et al. 2001; Krzyżaniak to slightly acidic soil reaction. Unsuitable are clay et al. 2019), and thus in terms of the length of the soils prone to crusting, stony soils, dry or, converse- growing season, as well as in terms of the occur- ly, wet, and land on slopes above 7°. rence of temperature extremes (especially tropical Although camelina is often considered as a less days with temperature over 30°C). Moisture is pri- demanding crop to site conditions and inputs (e.g. marily related to the sum of precipitation, especially Putnam et al. 1993; Zubr 1997; Strašil 2008), com- during the growing period. As stated by Holzkämper pared to marginal areas, in optimal conditions with et al. (2010), while the sufficient moisture is import - mild temperatures and adequate soil moisture are ant mainly for the vegetative phase of growth, the T a b l e 1 Definition of optimal and suitable environmental conditions for spring camelina cultivation from view of seed yield Suitable conditions Optimal Indicator conditions Dry Wet Climatic region* 02, 05, 06, 07 01, 03, 04 08 Slope < 3° < 7° 1 – 7° Soil texture** sl, l sl, l ls, sl, l Soil depth > 0.6 m > 0.31 m > 0.31 m Skeleton content < 10% < 10% < 25% *by Džatko, Sobocká et al. (2009); **LS – loamy sand; SL – sandy loam; L – loam 43 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 − 46 occurrence of tropical days affects the generative ing time. Therefore, extreme soil texture categories phase of crop growth. were primarily excluded from optimal and suitable Because spring camelina has a short vegetation conditions for camelina cultivation. period (up to 100 days), its cultivation in Slovakia is As the most part of the camelina root system practically not limited by the sum of physiological- occurs in the layer 0 ‒ 0.6 m (Putnam et al. 1993; ly active temperature. Temperature extremes, espe- Obour et al. 2015; Gesch & Johnson 2015), only cially temperatures above 30°C during the ripening deep (> 0.6 m) and medium-deep (0.31 ‒ 0.6 m) phase, can reduce the seed yields significantly (Aiken soils were considered as suitable for camelina cul- et al. 2015). Due to the elimination of the rainfall tivation. Because increased stone/gravel content, excess in humid and cold areas (BPEJ climate re- as well as slope over 7°, can reduce the crop yields gion codes 9 and 10) and due to the occurrence of (Vilček & Bedrna 2007), lands on the slope of up hot days in the warmest climatic region (climate re- to 7° without skeleton (< 10%) and weakly skeletal gion code 0), areas corresponding with mentioned soils (10 ‒ 25%) were classified as suitable (Table 1). climates are not included in the definition of suitable Based on the parameters listed in Table 1, ap- areas for camelina cultivation (Table 1). proximately 27% of the acreage of utilised arable As additional site indicators, the slope, soil tex- land can be considered as optimal and suitable for ture, soil depth, and skeleton content were taken into spring camelina cultivation in Slovakia. The spatial account. To some extent, soil texture corresponds distribution of these areas is shown in Figure 1. The with moisture (its retention and availability for root remaining area of utilised arable land is considered system). Loamy and sandy-loam soils are considered as less suitable and unsuitable for camelina cultiva- optimal for spring camelina cultivation. Suitable are tion. also loamy-sand soils, but their production potential As stated by Neupane et al. (2018), the main tends to be lower. Clearly unsuitable are clay and advantage of camelina as a feedstock for biofuel wet soils due to delays in entering the land for early production, in comparison to oilseed rape, is its cul- seeding (Sintim et al. 2016) which can affect the use tivation in conditions that are no more suitable for of winter moisture in the soil and subsequently also rapeseed. The areas, where camelina could be com- increase the likelihood of tropical days occurrence petitive to oilseed rape, which is currently the main during ripening as a consequence of a shift in sow- raw material for FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) Figure 1. Optimal and suitable areas for spring camelina cultivation within the utilised arable land of Slovakia 44 Agriculture (Poľnohospodárstvo), 67, 2021 (1): 42 −46 ture and Food Systems, 19(3), 141 ‒ 151. DOI:10.1079/ production, were detected by overlapping of GIS RAFS200473. layer of optimal & suitable areas for camelina cul- Bujnovský, R., Holíčková, M. and Ondrejíčková, P. (2020). tivation (Figure 1) with a GIS layer of less suitable Spring Camelina sativa – Perspective cultivation as bio- fuel feedstock in Slovakia. Industrial Crops and Prod- & non-suitable areas for oilseed rape (developed by ucts, 154, 112634. DOI:10.1016/j.indcrop.2020.112634. Vilček & Bedrna 2007). 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Received: April 29, 2021 Putnam, D.H., Budin, J.T., Field, L.A. and Breene, W.M. Accepted: June 3, 2021 (1993). Camelina: A promising low-input oilseed. In Jan- ick, J. & Simon, J.E. (Eds.) New crops. New York: Wiley, pp. 314 ‒ 322.

Journal

Agriculturede Gruyter

Published: Apr 1, 2021

Keywords: Camelina sativa (l.) crantz; climate conditions; soil conditions; suitability of cultivation

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