by Lana Bandoim (Forbes) … In his (President Joe Biden’s) speech, he revealed paying farmers for planting cover crops that will help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cover crops include Camelina, rye, buckwheat and several others.
Yield10 Bioscience, an agtech company using gene discovery tools, has been doing field trial studies to boost seed and oil yield in the high-value cover crop Camelina sativa (Camelina). The company believes Camelina possesses significant potential as a winter cover crop.
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Cover crops are plants that are used to cover the soil instead of being harvested. They are able to store carbon while protecting the soil during off-seasons. This is often referred to as soil carbon sequestration and has been explored by both farmers and scientists to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions and generate more value by enriching the soil for future agricultural production.
In addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, cover crops can make food production more sustainable by improving soil health and preventing nutrients from leaching into water. Although cover crops have these benefits, they have been an economic loss for the farmer.
By paying for cover crops, the climate plan gives farmers an additional incentive to plant them while improving the environment.
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Yield10 Bioscience is developing both spring and winter varieties of the oilseed Camelina to be used as cover crops. The company wants to make Camelina a high-value cash cover crop, so growers can also benefit from the proteins and oils produced by the plant.
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Earlier this year, Yield10 Bioscience achieved a proof-of-concept milestone for producing natural PHA bioplastic in field-grown Camelina sativa plants genetically programmed to produce PHA bioplastics directly in seed. Often referred to as PHA bioplastics, PHAs are natural polyesters. They are useful in a wide range of plastics applications and fully biodegradable in the environment.
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The technology developed by the team led by Professor Napier at Rothamsted has demonstrated the production of omega-3 (DHA and EPA) nutritional oils in Camelina that closely mimic the composition of natural fish oil, an important ingredient in aquaculture feed.
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Cover crops create a second growing season for new products like biofuels and bioplastics while increasing the production of protein for food and feed. READ MORE; includes AUDIO