Spring Crops for the Palouse, Do Oilseeds Work?.

Oilseed crops should be adapted, productive, easy to grow, economically viable, and produce, useful oil and meal. Agronomic trials comparing eight spring crops: barley, wheat, dry pea, lentil, camelina, oriental mustard, yellow mustard, and canola; were conducted annually from 2008 to 2011 near Moscow, ID and Pullman, WA. Each crop was grown in four replicate blocks 7.5 m square and managed with recommended inputs. Winter wheat was sown after each crop as sub-plots to evaluate N fertilizer response within previous crop, but those results are not presented. Yields varied among all spring crops all years but averaged 2190 kg ha^-1. Yields averaged across years were, in kg ha^-1, 4990 for barley, 3410 for wheat, 1540 for pea, 1130 for lentil, 2170 for camelina, 1590 for oriental mustard, 1440 for yellow mustard, and 1230 for canola. Yields varied, as shown by yearly departure from average across years, the most for pea (61%) and lentil (57%) and the least for barley (14%) and camelina (17%) with the other oilseeds and wheat intermediate (23-43%). Low variability indicates greater adaptation across environments and producers would reduce risk by growing lower variability crops. Some of the variability in these trials was related to experimental circumstances, especially for pea and lentil, but grain legumes are more variable than barley and wheat when grown commercially. Barley, wheat, dry pea, and lentil are locally grown crops and profitable to growers when prices are favorable. Except for camelina, oilseed crops were variable and lower yielding than other spring crops currently grown in the Palouse.