Author
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Johnson, Richard |
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Submitted to: International Safflower Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 4/1/1997 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: In 1994, safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) plant introductions (PI's) from the U.S. world collection, including a core subset of 203 accessions and 797 noncore accessions, along with high linoleic (Morlin) and oleic (Montola 2001) cultivar checks were evaluated for percent oil, fatty acid composition, vitamin E, and meal phenolic glucosides. Oil percent ranged from 46 to 13 in 797 noncore PI's and from 44 to 14 in the core, with the checks averaging 40.2 percent. Linoleic percent ranged from 83.1 to 11.0 in the 797 PI's and from 86.5 to 12.1 in the core, with Morlin averaging 80.8 percent. The range for oleic percent in the core (77.1 to 6.2) was somewhat less that of the 797 noncore PI's (81.9 to 1.0), with Montola 2001 averaging 81.1 percent. The range of values in the 797 PI's for vitamin E (à-tocopherol) (160 to 18 mg per 100 g oil) and percent cathartic glucosides (11.3 to 0.9) was also greater than the core, but this swas not the case for percent bitter glucosides, which ranged from 1.30 to 0.17 in the 797 PI's and from 2.29 to 0.02 in the core. The core subset di not always include the most extreme values but did capture most of the variation represented in the 797 noncore PI's. Variation among accessions for key oil and meal quality factors were identified and these are availabl to the research community upon request. Technical Abstract: The USDA-ARS maintains a collection of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) plant genetic resources at the Western Regional Plant Introduction Station (WRPIS), which currently includes over 2300 accessions. No direct evaluation of fatty acid concentration or other valu added factors such as vitamin E and phenolic glucosides have been completed. Previously, a safflower core subset was developed from the entire collection of over 2,000 accessions to capture as much diversity as possible in about 10% of the total accessions. An evaluation of 1,000 accessions from the U.S. world collection, including the 203 accession form the core subset, was completed. It appeared, therefore, that the scope for substantial improvement in percent oil and either linoleic or oleic fatty acids using the germplasm collection was more limited than other value added characteristics such a s vitamin E and meal phenolic glucosides. This is reasonable given that breeding programs have already concentrated on oil and fatty acids quality to a far greater extent than ot value added factors. The core subset did appear to capture the majority of diversity present in the larger set of 797 noncore accessions. Thus the core offers a relatively small germplasm set useful for evaluation and screening of factors that may be too complex or expensive to complete on the whole collection. |
