6-24 IAN Navy Tests Camelina

On a recent trip to Montana to take my daughter to look at Montana State University, I found an oil well. It’s produced by seeds. I’m David Sparks and I’ll explain in a minute. Camelina is an oilseed crop that has demonstrated better drought tolerance and greater spring freezing tolerance than canola. It’s a member of the mustard family and a lot of it is grown in Montana. Here’s Alice Pilgeram, Research Professor at Montana State University who says that her research on oil seed crops showed: “Hands down, camelina produced better than the other oil seed crops. The driving force behind commercial production is bio-diesel industry.

 Well, The U.S. Air Force just announced the successful flight of an A-10 Thunderbolt using a biofuel blend of camelina, mixed with conventional jet fuel. The Air Force plans to test the blend on additional aircraft over the next couple of years. Now the Navy’s getting involved. Scott Johnson is President of the Montana-based company Sustainable Oils - which provided camelina - biodiesel to the Navy for a recent test flight at the Patuxent Naval Station in Maryland: “The Navy flew an F-18, or what they’re calling the Green Phantom because it was flying on biofuel, 50% of the fuel on board was camelina based HRJ-5 which is the Navy’s jet fuel that we produced under contract for them and everything went very well, they got up to a Mach 1.2.”

Farmers, I’d look into this emerging cash crop at Mach 3 speed.