Breeding low temperature resistant Camelina sativa for biofuel production

In the European effort to produce sustainable aviation fuel our team is involved in a FP7 project (ITAKA) in breeding activities of Camelina sativa L. as main feedstock. One of our purposes it is to obtain a variety with high productivity and resistant to low temperatures specific to continental winters as can occur in Romania. This variety may be seeded as autumn culture under minimal tilling conditions. As starting material have been used a local camelina cultivar resistant to low temperatures and an international variety GP202 with high productivity and oil content. It has been taken into account classical approach, the use of immature embryo rescue technique. The first hybrid generation was obtained by castration and pollination; the immature embryos were cultivated in MS medium w/o hormones; new plantlets were cultivated till full maturity under greenhouses conditions. The obtained seeds have been used in open field for other randomized hybridization. The new hybrid registered the following characteristics: the plant lengths and the branching level are non-significantly different compared to the parental lines (ANOVA tests); in terms of productivity, GP202 variety kept its top position, while the new hybrid has proven top position for oil content (2.13% higher in total fat). Regarding the winter resistance, the hybrid has registered 10% more survived plants in open land. As a remark, during the experiments GP202 showed the highest sensibility to the mildew attack. The further aim of the work is to fix the new characters in order to homologate the new variety.