Relay cropping winter camelina with chickpea, sunflower, and safflower

Relay cropping involves overlapping growing phases of two crops and is used to increase plant cover on the landscape, land productivity, and crop diversity. We evaluated relay cropping three summer crops (chickpea [ Cicer arietinum L.], sunflower [ Helianthus annuus L.], and safflower [ Carthamus tinctorius L.]) with winter camelina ( Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz) between 2022 and 2025 to determine suitability of each summer crop for relay cropping with winter camelina. Relay crop treatment resulted in slower canopy closure following winter camelina harvest and delayed development of all summer crops relative to monocrop treatments. Winter camelina yield averaged 1133, 904, and 206 kg ha −1 in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Relay crop chickpea yield (2015 kg ha −1 ) was lower than monocrop chickpea (3397 kg ha −1 ) in 2023, but not in 2024 (1492 and 1524 kg ha −1 , respectively) and seed protein was unaffected. Relay crop sunflower yield (1508 kg ha −1 ), oil content (503 g kg −1 ), and oil yield (760 kg ha −1 ) were lower than monocrop sunflower (4428 kg ha −1 , 548 g kg −1 , and 2426 kg ha −1 , respectively) in 2023 but not 2025. Safflower seed yield and seed oil yield were not affected by relay crop treatment either year. Spring weed populations were not affected by relay crop treatment, but all three summer crops had higher weed biomass in the relay crop treatment before summer crop harvest in fall of 2023. All three crops have potential to be relay cropped with winter camelina, and future work on agronomic management will be needed to optimize the system.