(Montana State University/Biomass Magazine) A Montana State University scientist has received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science to research ways to improve the usefulness of camelina, an ancient crop that the modern world has come to value as a potential source of alternative fuel.
The project was one of seven totaling $7.8 million that were jointly selected by the DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund bio-based fuel research.
The grant will allow Chaofu Lu, associate professor in MSU’s Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology in the College of Agriculture, to study ways to improve the crop’s seed and oil quality.
Lu, working alongside John Browse, professor at the Institute of Biological Chemistry at Washington State University, seeks to answer two questions with the federal grant.
“We’re going to try to understand the genetic mechanisms and find factors we could use for the breeding,” Lu said.
First, the idea is to selectively breed for larger camelina seeds. Typically, they are about the size of sesame seeds, but smaller seeds are less efficient for processing—there’s not enough oil relative to the husk and rest of the seed.
Second, Lu wants to improve the quality of the oil coming from the seeds. Right now, camelina oil is too high in unsaturated fat and could render oil that is prone to oxidation and spoilage. The goal of the grant work is to make the oil more like olive oil—to increase its proportion of oleic acid—from about 15 percent naturally to some 80 percent. READ MORE
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