Rothamsted Research has sought permission from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to run a series of trials using genetically modified (GM) Camelina plants.

The application is for a five-year project, ending in 2023, with plants being sown in April, and harvested in September and follows previous GM Camelina trials carried out in 2018 across two sites in Hertfordshire and Suffolk.

The first part of the trial will determine performance in the field, and the seed oil yield, of transgenic Camelina plants that have been engineered to accumulate polyunsaturated fatty acids in their seeds. The second strand of work will look at the performance of Camelina plants whose metabolism has been altered to increase seed oil content. The final part will investigate the performance of Camelina plants engineered to contain less sinapine in their seeds. Sinapine is a bitter-tasting chemical that makes the protein-rich seed meal less palatable as an animal feed.

For more details, read the news article in Rothamsted Research.