As a summer or winter annual plant, camelina grows to heights of 30–120 cm (12–47 in), with branching stems which become woody at maturity.

[5] C. sativa has been traditionally cultivated as an oilseed crop to produce vegetable oil and animal feed.

[4] It was possibly brought to North America unintentionally as a weed with flaxseed, and has had limited commercial importance until modern times.

[2] The crop is now being researched due to its exceptionally high level (up to 45%) of omega-3 fatty acids, which is uncommon in vegetable sources.

[13] The oil is registered under the name "Olej rydzowy tradycyjny" as a traditional speciality guaranteed product in the European Union[14] and the United Kingdom.

[19] On 22 April 2010, the U.S. Navy observed Earth Day by conducting a flight test lasting about 45 minutes at Naval Air Station Patuxent River of an F/A-18 Super Hornet – nicknamed the "Green Hornet" – powered by a 50/50 blend of conventional jet fuel and a biofuel made from camelina; the flight was the first of a planned 15 test flights totaling about 23 flight-hours, scheduled for completion by mid-June 2010.

[21] On 4 September 2011, the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron used a 50/50 blend of camelina biofuel and jet fuel at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Air Expo, the first time an entire military aviation unit flew on a biofuel mix.

[22] In 2011, the U.S. Navy announced plans to deploy a "Great Green Fleet," a carrier battle group powered entirely by nonfossil fuels, by 2016.

[24] Continental Airlines, was the first commercial airline to test a 50:50 blend of bio-derived "green jet" fuel and traditional jet fuel in the first demonstration of the use of sustainable biofuel to power a commercial aircraft in North America.

The demonstration flight, conducted in partnership with Boeing, GE Aviation/CFM International, and Honeywell's UOP, marked the first sustainable biofuel demonstration flight by a commercial carrier using a two-engine aircraft: a Boeing 737-800 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines.

On 23 November 2009, a Boeing 747 flew, carrying a limited number of passengers, with one of its four engines running on a 50/50 mix of biofuel and kerosene.

[27][citation needed] The Dutch biofarming company Waterland International and a Japanese federation of farmers made an agreement in March 2012 to plant and grow camelina on 2000 to 3000 ha in Fukushima Prefecture.

[28] A partnership of Chevron and Bunge companies purchased an Argentina camelina sativa seed producer, Chacraservicios, in July 2023 to contribute to their bio-diesel production.

"Feeding camelina meal significantly increased (p < 0.01) omega-3 [fatty acid] concentration in both breast and thigh meat [of turkeys] compared to control group."

[37] The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has approved feeding cold-pressed non-solvent extracted Camelina meal to broiler chickens at up to 12% inclusion.

[41] The first full genome sequence for Camelina sativa was released on 1 August 2013, by a Canadian research team.

[42] Technical details of Camelina's genome sequence were published on 23 April 2014 in the academic journal Nature Communications.

[48] Camelina is a short-season crop (85–100 days) and grows well in the temperate climate zone in light or medium soils.

Also, camelina is highly resistant to black leg and Alternaria brassicae, but it can be susceptible to sclerotinia stem rot.

[52] Camelina is harvested and seeded with conventional farming equipment, which makes adding it to a crop rotation relatively easy for farmers who do not already grow it.