Evaluation of winter camelina (Camelina sylvestris Waller ssp. pilosa Zing.) cultivars for environmental adaptability

Popularity in the world because of high oil content and a wide range of uses. From the environmental point of view, winter camelina possesses phenotypic plasticity and seems to be particularly adapted to a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. Camelina is a cold-resistant and drought-tolerant plant. Spread of winter camelina cultivation and its productivity improvement depends on the genetic diversity of cultivars adapted to the conditions of the region of its cultivation, as well as on the genotype-environment interaction. In the presented work, it was first established that in the conditions of the Middle Volga and Steppe Crimea, winter camelina specimens are adaptable, stable and able to produce high yield of good quality. This allows us to involve these forms in breeding new varieties adapted for cultivation in both regions. The aim of the work is to evaluate the cultivars of winter camelina for environmental adaptability and stability in two contrasting agroecological regions, the Middle Volga Region (Penza Agricultural Research Institute) and the steppe zone of the Crimea (Research Institute of Agriculture of Crimea) in 2015-2017. Varieties of Camelina sylvestris of various ecogeographical origins were investigated. Cultivar Penzyak (Penza Agricultural Research Institute) served as a standard. This cultivar has been cultivated in the Crimea on an industrial scale since 2015. Winter hardiness of the studied cultivars in the fields of Penza was high and ranged between 89.5 % to 96.7 %, in the Crimean Peninsula territory it was 92.3-96.9 %. Various hardiness groups were identified: samples with high cold tolerance (more than 98 %), samples with the middle level of winter hardiness (90-95 %), and samples with low winter-tolerance (less than 90 %). Winter hardiness of the same samples varied within the range of 92.3-96.9 % under the Crimean environment. The highest level of winter hardiness was noted for the cultivar Baron and individual selection line 4156, which exceeded standard cultivar Penzyak by 0.8-1.0 %, respectively. The productivity of varieties in the Crimea was 1.64-1.83 t/ha. Seed oil content varied from 35.61 to 43.90 %. The highest content of fat in seeds was noted in varieties Baron and Kozyr (43.90 and 43.60 %). Realization of yield potential of winter camelina cultivars and samples in the forest-steppe zone of the Middle Volga and steppe zone of the Crimea was relatively high, 70.9-88.9% and 71.1-86.3%, respectively. The highest level of yield realization was identified for the cultivar Dikiy (86.3 % and 88.9 %). Two samples (Dikiy and individual selection line 3290) were the most effective in terms of productivity. Their productivity was 1.83-1.97 when cultivated in Penza Agricultural Research Institute, and 1.73-1.85 t/ha in Research Institute of Agriculture of Crimea. On average, cultivar Dikiy (88.9 g/m2) and individual selection line 3290 (85.4 g/m2) showed the highest level of adaptability to the conditions of both territories. The lowest adaptability criterion was identified for the individual selection line 4172 from Sverdlovsk and individual selection line 4175 from Czechoslovakia, the fitness coefficients amounted 56.3 and 59.6 g/m2, respectively. High adaptability of the samples (bi = 0.98-0.99 for Dikiy and bi = 0.96-0.95 for individual selection line 3290) allows their cultivation both in the Middle Volga and in Steppe Crimea. Low adaptability was noted for the individual selection line 2219 (bi = 0.89) in the Penza region; in the Crimea, for the aforementioned individual selection line bi was 1.15.