Genetic Improvement of (L.) Crantz: Opportunities and Challenges

In recent years, a renewed interest in novel crops has been developing due to the environmental issues associated with the sustainability of agricultural practices. In particular, a cover crop, (L.) Crantz, belonging to the Brassicaceae family, is attracting the scientific community's interest for several desirable features. It is related to the model species , and its oil extracted from the seeds can be used either for food and feed, or for industrial uses such as biofuel production. From an agronomic point of view, it can grow in marginal lands with little or no inputs, and is practically resistant to the most important pathogens of . Although cultivated in the past, particularly in northern Europe and Italy, in the last century, it was abandoned. For this reason, little breeding work has been conducted to improve this plant, also because of the low genetic variability present in this hexaploid species. In this review, we summarize the main works on this crop, focused on genetic improvement with three main objectives: yield, seed oil content and quality, and reduction in glucosinolates content in the seed, which are the main anti-nutritional substances present in camelina. We also report the latest advances in utilising classical plant breeding, transgenic approaches, and CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing.