Safflower

Safflower

Joseph R. Smith

Champaign, Illinois

AOCS Mission Statement To be a forum for the exchange of ideas, information, and experience among those with a professional interest in the science and technology of fats, oils, and related substances in ways that promote personal excellence and provide high standards of quality.

AOCS Books and Special Publications Committee E. Perkins, chairperson, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois T. Foglia, USDA—ERRC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania M. Mossoba, Food and Drug Administration, Washington, D.C. Y.-S. Huang, Ross Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio L. Johnson, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa J. Lynn, Lever Brothers, Edgewater, New Jersey G. Maerker, Oreland, Pennsylvania G. Nelson, Western Regional Research Center, San Francisco, California F. Orthoefer, Stuttgart, Arkansas J. Rattray, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario A. Sinclair, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia G. Szajer, Akzo Chemicals, Dobbs Ferry, New York B. Szuhaj, Central Soya, Ft. Wayne, Indiana L. Witting, State College, Pennsylvania Copyright @ 1996 by AOCS Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher. The paper used in this book is acid-free and falls within the guidelines established to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-084161

Printed in the United States of America with vegetable oil-based inks. 00 99 98 97 96 5 4 3 2 1

To my wife, Joyce, who has provided unwavering support and effort to make things happen, and to make life fun, and who typed the manuscript for this book.

Acknowledgments One purpose of this book is to celebrate and thank the many, many people who have helped to create a new crop out of safflower. Thanks first to Carl Claassen and Al Hoffman whose unique combination of research, pioneering, and business ability brought forth the first practical safflower varieties, convinced farmers to grow them, and oil millers to buy them. Next, thanks must go to Paul Knowles of U.C. Davis and the Farm Advisors and Extension Agronomists of the California Extension Service, such as Milt Miller, Torrey Lyons, Ron Baskett, Karl Ingebretsen, Franz Kegel, Roy Edwards, Ted Torngren, Bob Sailsbery, E.O. McCutcheon, Tom Kearney, and others who stuck their necks out in the early days of safflower’s development, recommending that growers try it; and to George and Fred Tarke, Jack Harris, Frank and Vince Diener, Floyd Sparr, Frank Coit, Fritz Erdman, Fritz Strain, Dan Best, Louis Giovannoni, and Bud Daniels who successfully pioneered growing good safflower crops. Thanks, too, to Barney Rocca, Sr., for his humanism; Barney Rocca, Jr., for his great imagination and desire to push safflower trade to the far corners of our planet; to Ed Hill for his special ability to make a lot out of little; and to Gerry Brewer, Sam Evans, and Jim Greer for building a wonderful PCO team; and kudos as well to the salespeople, traders, and marketers who formed and nurtured new markets for safflower oil and meal: Dick Hammond, Joe Siracusa, Sam Ross, John Retkwa (even though he stole my secretary), Don Baker, Al Westerweel, Ruud Mente, Fabien Bismuth, Ed Cody, Yuzo Wada, I. Saitoh, Jim Taylor, Don McLeod, Roy Kelly, Hurley Zook, Tom Medd, Jesse Chiang, John Gyulai, Chris Thompson, Brooks Pierce, Don Nelson, Ken Dulin, Howard Boone, Bill Davis, Mike Radford, Dick Hayr, Ed Weimortz, Jim Karson, Mike McKittrick, JoVic Fabregas, Jack Ponting, Bill Dickinson, Herman Lambert, Ewold Dubbleman, Ralph Pöhner, Cees Spaargaren, and Rick Dobranski. Thanks to the people who kept the wheels turning and oil flowing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, such as Merton Boomer, Carter Sanders, Hans Nissen, Ned Robinson, Eino Oksanen, Paul Frausto, Dwight Hendrix, Chris Kopas, Mel Connely, Gerhard Schmidt, Alejandro Terrones, Ike Sinaico, Irwin Field, Bill Adams, Wiley Blair, Jerry Knick, Ernie Ferguson, Curt Halseide, Les Hefferline, Louie Mocny, Ben Grygga, Earl Saunders, and Dale Dybbro; to those who loaded the ships, like Bud Grimes, Jim Cordova, and Howard Wallace; and those who watched over and analyzed shipments, like Clem Burton-Smith, Mike Abed, Harry Spires, Murray Fenton, Graham Cullen, Abraham Oversier, Roger Loh, and Neil Falke. More praise goes to country buyers, dealers, and elevator operators like Chuck Crowell, John Rutkai, George Meckfessel, Hubert Hatch, Fred Sterzing, John Brownell, Dick Cooley, Bert Wolcott, Bill Meadows, Steve Chambers, Bud

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Gasset, Pat Silvey, Frank Moradian, Jack Morgan, Pete Dwyer, Kurt Storz, Jack Doty, Jay Claire, Tim Grunsky. Don Wille, Tony Correia, Terry Davis, Lee and Don Traynham, George Jimenez, Bill Adams, Gary Wick, Dewey Esvold, Marty Ketterling, and Ken Woodward. Thanks to those who helped safflower production and markets in foreign lands, such as Carlos Cuvi, Ceferino Sainz Pardo, Cesar Estrada, Pancho Obregon, Alan Lemon, Owen Duncan, Howard Colbert, John Ranken, Keith Coulton, Peter Leech, Joe Brauns, Morris Rassaby, Francisco and Julio Gonzalez Blazquez, Francisco Gonzalez Avila, Geronimo Cejudo, and to the agronomists, plant breeders, scientists, seed merchants, and farm managers who pushed the crop along, such as Don Smith, Dave Rubis, Gene Lorenz, Neil Riveland, Glenn Hartman, Lee Urie, Charlie Thomas, John Klisiewicz, Amran Ashri, Barney Hill, HansHenning Muendel, Elmer Carlson, Leon Pultz, Raphael Carrascosa, Li Dajue, Russell Giffen, Frank Ayerza, Ken Scarlett, Jim and Jesse Hansen, Charles Gilkey, Buster Allan, Audie Bell, the Herringer family, Earl Wallace, the Heidrick brothers, Fred and Everett Salyer, Evelyn Holland, Emery Poundstone, Balsdon Ranch, and Juan Martin Allende. Special thanks to those who represented Japan in making safflower a success in their homeland and abroad, such as Yonetaro Ueno, Kanji Yamaguchi, Norman Makino, Steve Ishiguro, Isao Ueda, Kaneyuki Funayama, Kokoichi Sato, Ichiro Dotsu, Koichi Kubota, Shoji Inoue, Ryouei Aoki, Enshiro Matsuyama, Kosaku Yoshimura, Manoto Hattori, Taneshi Horiuchi, S. Furusawa, Alan Webb, H. Nakahara, and Sue Murakami, all soldiers of Mitsubishi. And friendly thanks are extended to Toshimitsu Hagimori, Minoru Honda, Etsuya Shinohara, Isamu Takahashi, Hiroshi Inoue, Yashuhiro Akao, Paul Sakai, Ichiroh Nagasawa, Kohji Nagasaka, Norio Maekawa, Bud Yoshitomi, Paco Kuno, Keith Nakayama, Shigeru Aoki, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Hiromi Tanabe, Tadao Abe, Hiroshi Itoh, Toshitaka Konishi, and Masayoshi Fujiwara of Itochu; Tetsuya Satoh, Connie Kondo, Kazumi Ando, Nobuhiro Watanabe, Kenji Nakamura, Y. Sunayama, Kiminori Iikura, Ryoichi Ohe, Iwaharu Nishikawa, Kiichiroh Kamakura, Hiroshi Yumoto, Noburo Nikamura, Fumiyoshi Sugawara, N. Miura, Kinshi Takayama, Shotaro Tominaga, Isamu Hasegawa, Tadao Shigetomi, Tamotsu Yurugi, Masaru Omizu, and Yutaka Shoman of Toshoku; Seiro Shirakawa of Nichimen; Masakazu Otsuka of Nissho; Y. Fukuta, Kazuo Kawabata, Hiroshi Oikawa, and Y. Mochizuki of Sumitomo; and Junichi Tsutsumi of Yuaza. Chemists like John Kneeland, Ernie Jacobsen, Dick Purdy, Lowell Cummings, Tom Applewhite, John Cowan, George Kohler, Al Duvall, and Don Banks allowed us to see new horizons for safflower. Transportation and handling people, such as Wayne Hays, I. Noda, Jorgen Snitker, Hans Mathon, Bill Sibbern, Ras Apnes, Jorgen With-Seidelin, Grove Bryant, Gerd Breur, Torben Henry, George Gemelch, Al Mogerly, Eddie Elzer, I. Iki, Y. Yasui, N. Negishi, and Glenn Prickett, helped safflower safely reach intended destinations.

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Buyers of safflower seed, oil and meal are, of course, the reason all the rest of the equation works. Cheers then go to Henry Jurvis, Allen Hovde, Les Thompson, Neal Estrada, Tom Doak, Russ Smith, Gianni Zucchi, Mauri Karvetti, Juan Ramon Guillen, E.J. Berveling, Emile Rastoin, Pete Faust, George Jacobs, Greg MacIntosh, Mario Altonaga, H. Koschorreck, Jan Slof, Antonio Beiroco, Fred Deroost, Akira Ui, Keiji Matsumoto, Manubu Suzuki, T. Kariya, Tadashi Shirayama, George Bobango, Ed Muratori, Ramon Azria, Iwao Sunagawa, Ray List, Noel Hawkes, K. Ishii, Shunkichi Yamada, Buzo Watanabe, Kunio Egashira, and many more. Many others have helped safflower grow and prosper—journalists like Ernie Douglas, Jack Pickett, Henry Schacht, and George Willhite; bankers, such as Henry Drath, Diane Evans, Tom Blake, Hiroshi Ozawa, Nick Lyons, Armando Cassinelli, Takashi Kondo, Keishi Fujii, Linda Landucci, E.F. Blase, and D. Schotanus; Administrators like Doug Dies, Bob Moon, George Kromer, Wayne Wolcott, Dave Johnson, Dennis Giacone, Adolph and Paul Schumann, L.S. Wong, Si Seiwert, John Athanson, and Emil Schultz. Thanks go to the creators of the G.I. Bill who helped put so many of the those listed on the course they were to follow for the rest of their lives, to my parents and in-laws for putting money on the line and giving moral support when Agricom International was created. And finally, thanks to my partners, George Kopas and Jim Easler, with whom I have enjoyed many fun-filled years in the oilseed business. Joseph R. Smith Los Altos, California

Preface I have been lucky to have spent all of my business career dealing with every aspect of the safflower business throughout the world. In 1950, I was hired by Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation (PVO) as a chemist (really a dishwasher) because I had published a master’s thesis on safflower, and that year PVO had embarked on a project to grow the crop in California using varieties developed by my old friend, Carl Claassen. It soon became my job to coordinate all phases of PVO’s safflower program. After a time, I also became an officer in Claassen’s company, Pacific Oilseeds, Inc. (POI), so I could help to coordinate POI’s programs with those of PVO. After 18 years with PVO, I left, together with two PVO associates, to form Agricom International, a company that specialized in safflower and sunflower production and marketing, in addition to the operation of dry bulk vessel charters. Subsequently, we formed Oilseeds International, Ltd., to do toll processing and marketing of oilseeds (particularly safflower) on the behalf of others. In 1985 I wrote a cover story for the Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society*. Afterward, I began to think about doing a book that would contain everything you ever wanted to know about safflower. I talked to the AOCS and in 1988, the AOCS Monograph Committee agreed to publish such a book. Writing the book has taken longer than I planned because of some changes of direction that took place in my company’s operations that caused me to stop work on it for 2 years, but here we are. The book will contain a personal report on 40-plus years out of the 4,500 years that safflower has been cultivated. Most of the commercial development of safflower oil has taken place since 1950, and I have attempted to portray how this was done, how the different players involved approached the problem, and what we can learn from this that might help in the evolution of other “new” crops. I include chapters on the ancient history and origin of safflower and how it got started in the United States. I next switch to a discussion of the safflower plant as we know it today; how it grows; and a look at the composition of the seed, oil, meal, and florets in order to see what characteristics caused people to become interested in growing this crop and what fueled the development of the changing markets for safflower seed, oil, and meal. After this, the book explores the strategy that PVO pursued in promoting safflower during a period of near monopoly, and is followed by a look at how PVO’s principal competitors managed their strategies. A look at safflower research follows, (first agronomic, then industrial oil and meal studies, improved processing techniques, and medical and edible development) that leads into an examination of the exotic uses for safflower. The story then returns to an account of how safflower production has been encouraged in other countries, and how markets for safflower products have been exploited abroad. The discovery of *Smith, J.R., J. Amer. Oil Chem. Soc. 62: 1286 (1985).

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oleic safflower is covered in a chapter illustrating how this mutation has been developed. We then return to the PVO story by discussing outside and inside influences that caused the breakup of PVO and the evolution of the safflower business to its present condition, and where it might go next. Finally, the book contains an appendices listing acreage, production, consumption, export, and price data for the United States and other parts of the world, together with listings of the important safflower planting seed varieties, sections on growing, storing and processing of safflower, and a summary of trading rules and specifications involving safflower. The notes at the close of most chapters of this book constitute a general bibliography of safflower. Perhaps a word on the units of measurement used in this publication is in order. The United States continues to resist the metric system and practically all of the historical data in the United States is based on miles, acres, inches, feet, bushels, pounds, and 2,000-pound tons. I have chosen to report U.S. data for the past century in the english system and to report exports and export sales from the United States, as well as production and market data outside the United States in the metric system. Gathering data for such a book has been an interesting experience. Many of the old records of PVO and Agricom International are gone, and in many cases I have had to rely heavily on personal notes and finally memories, both mine and others. I would appreciate hearing from readers who may have another view of the many facets of this story. The vegetable oil industry of the world is full of fascinating people, some of whom I have tried to portray here. The preceding acknowledgments can only try to thank all of those who have helped me in this business and in the preparation of this book. Joseph R. Smith Los Altos, California

Contents

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Early Days of the Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Characteristics of Safflower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Development of the PVO Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Alternatives to the PVO Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Developmental Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Processing and Handling Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Industrial Oil Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Medical, Pharmaceutical, Cosmetic, and Edible Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Protein and Meal Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Analytical Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Unconventional Use Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 The Rise and Fall of PVO—Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 The Rise and Fall of PVO—Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Oleic Safflower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 Safflower Around the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 1980s to the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Safflower Today, and Where It Is Going . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476 U.S. and World Acreage Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480 North American Safflower Variety Descriptions . . . . . . . . 526 Recommended Cropping Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530 Legal and Technical Regulation of Trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

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Chapter 1

History Description Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius Linn) is a plant that has been cultivated since ancient times (1–7). It has been known under many names: asfiore, asper, aspir, assfore, azafrancillo, bastard saffron, benibana, benihana, brarta, cartamo, cartham, carthami flos, carthamo, carthamos, cnecus, cnicus, cnikos, cusumba, dikken, dyer’s saffron, false saffron, flase, ghurtom, golbar aftab, golzardu, hong hua, hubulkhortum, hung hua, kafsha, kafshe, kahil, kajena-goli, kajireh, kamal lotarra, kardi, kariza, kasumbha, kazhirak, khardam, khariah, kharkhool, khartum, khasdonah, kosheh, kouchan-gule, kusum, kusuma, kusumba, laba torbak, maswarh, muswar, onickus, ostur, qurtum, saffiiore, safflor, snecus, suff, thistle saffron, ssuff, usfar, usfur, and zafaran-golu, (8,9) among others. Safflower is a member of the Compositae (Cynaraae) family, which includes several important crop plants, such as artichoke, (Cynara scolymus), sunflower (Heliamthus annus), niger seed (Guizotia abyssinica), and chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum). In his classic work Castor, Sesame, and Safflower, Weiss gives a description of safflower that can not be improved. “Safflower is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual varying in height from 30 to 150 cm. It has a strong, somewhat thickened tap-root, and numerous thin laterals. The stem is stiff, solid, circular in section, thick at the base and tapering with height, smooth and glabrous. The plant has many branches, each terminating in a flower, and the extent of branching within a variety depends mainly on environment. The leaves are simple, usually dark green, sessile and glabrous, exstipulate, deciduous, with short spines scattered along the margins, having acuminate tips and a pronounced midrib. They are cauline, alternate, penastichous, with a phyllotaxy of two-fifths (144°). The inflorescence is a dense capitulum of flowers, invested with an involucre of green ovoid bracts, the outer bracts separate, foliaceous, sometimes spinescent, the inner becoming fused, ovate, often covered with short white hairs. The involucre is conical, with a small apical opening through which the corolla tubes of the flowers protrude. The receptacle is broad, flat or slightly curved, and densely bristled from the numerous floral bracts. There are numerous flowers in the inflorescence, all regular, carried on the receptacle. The flower has no pappus. The florets are tubular, sessile, regular epigynous, and grow out through the apical opening of the involucre, The calyx is rudimentary. The ovary is unilocular, with a simple basal ovule, which is composed of two united carpels, and is inferior. The fruit is cypsela, glabrous, obovate with a flattened top, with four longitudinal ribs such that a cross-section of the seed has a rhombic shape. The pericarp is generally whitish, the pappus normally absent. The seed is dicotyledonous, oleaginous and exalbuminous”(10). 1

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Safflower

This rather formal description accurately describes a plant that resembles a weedy thistle through much of its growth period, develops formidable spines during the last half of its life (although there are spineless varieties), and about 45 days before it is ready for harvest presents beautiful yellow, orange, or red flowers for a period of approximately 2–4 weeks. The question most farmers ask when they first see a safflower plant is, “Will it become a weed if I grow it?” The answer is no. Safflower, as it is presently known, exists only under cultivation and does not become a pest. It can volunteer, and sometimes a volunteer field is worth saving, but it does not then repeat itself or establish itself in the long-term environment. The second question usually centers around the plant’s spininess. Most people who work around safflower learn to wear leather pants, chaps, or at least heavy blue jeans when they need to walk through safflower in its later stages, or better yet, they avoid walking through it. Even dogs learn this quickly. Albert Hoffman (discussed later in this chapter) loved to describe a hound dog he saw chasing a rabbit. Just before the dog could grab the rabbit, it darted into a safflower field with the dog in hot pursuit. A few seconds later he saw the dog sheepishly backing out of the field, very slowly, one paw at a time, trying to avoid any more scratches. In mechanized farming, the spines are not a serious problem. There the question usually is, “How do you harvest this stuff?” In the parts of the world where safflower is harvested by machine, the farmer can harvest it in much the same manner as grain. Custom harvesters usually charge about the same amount per acre to harvest safflower or wheat. If the throat of the combine-harvester gets plugged with safflower plants in a heavy field of safflower, the usual “smart” answer to what to do is “Burn the combine!” It is not that bad, and seldom happens with experienced operators, but when it occurs it is a tough job because of the many spines.

Origin Nobody knows exactly how long ago or where safflower originated. Salunke et al. call it the world’s oldest crop (9), whereas others in Evolution of Crop Plants indicate that olives, dates, and sesame may be older (11). In any case, over 4,000 years ago safflower was grown in Egypt; it is possible that it was grown earlier in the Euphrates region. Weiss (8) uncovered a number of Egyptological references showing that safflower was prized as a source of red-yellow and orange dyes for cotton and silk. The dyes were derived from safflower flowers, and this use continues to this day. Safflower orange dye was used to dye the bindings of mummies found in ancient tombs (1,4,12) and was used to color ceremonial ointments used to anoint mummies. Safflower flowers were woven into mummy wreaths, while safflower seeds were found in temple offerings, and representations of the flower have been found in early Egyptian wall-paintings (13,14). Safflower flowers inserted in packets of willow leaves were found with a mummy from circa 1600 B.C. (15). Narrow garlands of safflower flowers sewn on papyrus or cloth and wrapped about mummies’ bodies or necks (Figure 1.1) and safflower seeds were found in Egyptian tombs (8,13,16,17).

History

Figure 1.1. Garlands of safflower flowers on display in the Agricultural Museum, Cairo, Egypt.

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Safflower

Vavilov (18) and Kupsow (19) hypothesized that safflower had three main centers of origin: India, the Iran-Afghanistan area, and Ethiopia. De Candolla (5) felt that Arabia was more probable, but more recent work by Hanelt on taxonomy (20). Ashri on the divergence and evolution of the genus (21), and Ashri and Knowles on cytogenetics (22,23) lead to the conclusion that the Euphrates basin is the most likely area for its origin (8). Hooker and Jackson (24) listed 60 species of the genus Carthamus, but the previously listed workers and Yuan et al. (25) reduced these to about 25 species. Except for the cultivated safflower, all are spiny weeds that grow in the wild. Some become serious problems, while others grow on roadsides or waste places. Knowles felt that the species can be divided into five chromosome groups with 10, 11, 12, 22, and 32 pairs (26). Cultivated safflower is part of the 12-pair group. Three wild species are closely related: Carthamus flavescens Spreng, is usually a wheat field weed found in Lebanon, Syria, and continental Turkey, C. oxyacantha M.B., is a very serious weed in the area from western Iraq to northwestern India and northward into the southern parts of some former republics of the U.S.S.R.; and C. palaestinus, Eig., found in the desert regions of Iraq, Israel, and Jordan (26,27). Carthamus tinctorius and C. flaverscens are self-incompatible (28,29), C. palaestinus is self-compatible, and C. oxyacantha is mixed self-compatible and self-incompatible (26). These species readily cross with C. tinctorius to produce fertile progeny in the F1 and F2 generations (27). Two other species, C. gypsicolus Ilj. and C. curdicus Han., seem to belong to the 12-chromosome group. Carthamus gypsicolus Ilj. is similar to C. oxyacantha but is found only in some of the republics of the former U.S.S.R., while C. curdicus Han. is similar to both C. gypsicolus and C. flavescens and is restricted to northern Iraq, (20). They have not been introduced into the United States, and cross capabilities to C. tinctorius have not been studied (27). All of these 12-pair species have yellow flowers except C. palaestinus, which has both yellow- and white-flowered types. Ramanamurthy (30) and Imrie and Knowles (28,29) have published studies on alletes of this group. Knowles believed that all of them originated from a common ancestor, probably from northern Iraq/northwestern Iran (17). C. nitidus Boiss, which also has 12 chromosome pairs, is distinctly different from the previously mentioned group. This native of the Syrian-Palestine region has while- to light-rose-colored flowers, white pollen, and gray-green foliage, resembling species of the 10-chromosome group, but it produces no seed when crossed with members of that group (31). Some crosses with cultivated safflower produced F1 plants that were intermediate between the parents but failed to produce seed. Carthamus nitidus did not produce seed when back-crossed to cultivated types, is self-fertile, and remains a mystery taxonomically (30). Early in its evolution, C. tinctorius spread to Egypt, Ethiopia, southern Europe, south Asia, and the Far East, where distinct types have evolved (27). In 1969, Knowles introduced a system of comparing characteristics of safflower in the different centers (geographic regions) where it is found (27,32). These centers of similarity are 1. Far East: China, Japan, and Korea; 2. India-Pakistan: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh;

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3. Middle East: Afghanistan to Turkey, southern republics of the former U.S.S.R. to the Indian Ocean; 4. Egypt; bordering the Nile north of Aswan; 5. Sudan: bordering the Nile in northern Sudan and southern Egypt: 6. Ethiopia; and 7. Europe: Algeria, France, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. Table 1.1 lists certain characteristics in descending order of frequency. In 1975, Ashri (33) expanded Knowles’ list by analyzing 13 morphological characteristics for 2,000 safflower accessions from 30 countries. Ashri divided Knowles’ Middle East Center into three regions. Turkish lines were categorized separately because many of them are not endemic and have diverse origins. Morphological and other traits differentiate the Near East pool (Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq) and the Iran-Afghanistan pool. In addition Ashri added Kenya to the list, and produced the following list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Far East (poorly represented in the collection); Indian subcontinent; Iran-Afghanistan; Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria; Turkey; Egypt; Sudan; Kenya; Ethiopia; and Morocco, Spain, Portugal, and France.

In land around the eastern Mediterranean and extending eastward into northwestern Iran are found species with 10 pairs of chromosomes having great morphological differences. Carthamus glaucus M.B., C. tenius B.&B., C. alexandrinus B.&H., and TABLE 1.1 Safflower Characteristics of Different Geographical Regions, in Order of Decreasing Frequency Geographical Region

Height

Branching Spines

Head Size

Flower Color

Far East India-Pakistan Middle East Egypt Sudan Ethiopia Europe

tall sh tall int sh, int tall int

int many few few int many int

int sm, int int, large large, int sm, int sm int

r o,w,r r,o,y,w o,y,w,r y,o r o,r,y,w

sp, spls sp spls sp, spls sp sp sp, spls

Abbreviations: sh, short; int, intermediate; sp. spiny; spls, spineless; sm, small; r, red; w, white; o, orange; and y, yellow. Source: Reprinted by permission from Economic Botany, Knowles (32), copyright 1969, The New York Botanical Garden.

6

Safflower

C. leucocaulos S.&S. are included in this group. Knowles and Shank (31) studied the first three species, which all have grey-green foliage, flower color that ranges from purple to white, and white pollen. Aside from those similarities, they differ greatly. Crosses of the species made by Knowles and Shank showed it to be a complex taxo-nomic group, since crosses of most species produced F1 plants with normal chromosome pairing, but others showed a translocation. Estilai’s research also supports these findings (34). Knowles (26) reports that C. leucocaulos, which was not included in his studies with Shank, is quite different from other species in this group. It is found in the Aegean islands and has been introduced into southern Europe, Australia, and the United States. It has small heads, smooth stems, high self-fertility, and flowers that are light purple to light pink. Crosses to other species with 10-chromosome pairs showed a close relationship, although one cross showed a translocation and a paracentric inversion (35). There is only one species that displays 22 pairs of chromosomes, C. lanatus L. It displays yellow to white flowers, yellow pollen, and is self-fertile. It has been found over a wide range of the old world, extending from Spain and Portugal to eastern Turkey. Its origin remains a mystery. Studies by Ashri and Knowles (22) and by Harvey and Knowles (36) failed to provide conclusive evidence. Two species, C. turkestanicus Popov and C. baeticus (Boiss. & Reut.) Nym., have 32 pairs of chromosomes. Carthamus turkestanicus is found from Turkey to Pakistan and Kashmir and populations have been introduced into Ethiopia. Carthamus baeticus is found all around the Mediterranean and on its islands. Both have grey-green foliage, light-yellow to white flowers, white pollen, and light-colored anthers with purple to brown stripes. They both have regular chromosome pairing, but hybrids between them produce some trivalents and quadrivalents. There seems to be considerable gene exchange between the two and C. lanatus (26). These two species may be allopoids where C. turkestanicus is derived from a cross of C. lanatus with C. glaucus M. Bieb. and C. baeticus is derived from a cross of C. lanatus with C. leucocaulos (37,38). One species, C. divaricatus (Beg & Vacc) Pamp., found only in Libya has 11 pairs of chromosomes. It is quite distinct since it has horizontal branching; yellow, purple, and white flowers; yellow pollen; and dark-purple-striped anthers. Estilai and Knowles (26,39) reason that C. divaricatus is closely related to 10-pair chromosome species, but more study is needed as to its origins. Finally, Knowles (26) theorized on a tentative pattern for the evolution in Carthamus genes based on the following assumptions: AA for species with 2n (number of chromosomes) = 20; A1A1 for an ancestral species with 2n = 20; BB for species with 2n = 24; and B1B1 for an ancestral species with 2n = 24. This can be portrayed as follows:

History

7

Dispersion Safflower has been grown for centuries, primarily as a source of dye for food and clothing, along the Nile as far as Ethiopia and from the eastern Mediterranean through the Middle East and on through India, Afghanistan, southern Russia, and into north China. It was used as a medicinal and became known as an edible oil during pre-Christian times in Mesopotamia (8). It continues to be grown in small plots over most of this area and in most parts of the world where Spaniards, Arabs, or Asians have settled. In most of these places it is also used as an adulterant in, or substitute for saffron (40,41). Hanelt (20) and Weiss (8) theorized that the word carthamus is the Latinized version of the Arabic words quartum, qurtum, or kurtum, which refers to dye color, extracted from the flower heads, and usfar is an Arabic word for yellow that is probably the source of the name “safflower”. There are numerous references to safflower by Arabic, Greek, and Latin authors (8). The revenue papyrus of Ptolemy II for 259–258 B.C. showed that the king had a monopoly for the production and marketing of certain vegetable oils, including safflower oil (13). Pliny wrote that it was used as a mild substitute for castor oil but not for edible purposes (8). Others in Egypt have described its use as a dye practically up to modern times (15,42,43). It is mentioned in Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, written during the first century A.D. and the leading text on pharmacology for 16 centuries, as a source of color and flavor for potions and unguents, as a pot herb, and as a source of a mild laxative (8). As the Moslem Empire expanded, traders carried safflower with them along the coast of North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. It was used not only as a cloth dye but also to color soups and rice dishes, the latter use continuing to this day. Arabs also introduced it into East Africa, and it is still found growing in that region in home gardens. Weiss points out that local Arab or Indian traders quickly snap up any local production for personal use (9). It was introduced into Britain in 1551 from Egypt primarily for use as a food coloring, but also as a dye (8). Carthamin, the red clothing dye extracted from safflower flowers, was produced in southern Germany (44–46) and Alsace (47) from the sixteenth century, and from the nineteenth century in Russia (48), and southern Italy and Sicily until recent times (49).

8

Safflower

It begins being mentioned in Hebrew literature in the second century A.D. as a food-coloring agent, rouge, and medicinal (50,51). Jewish cooking in Poland made extensive use of the flowers to color breads and other foods. It was grown as a garden or small truck crop in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and moved from there into Turkey (52,53). Turks introduced it into all parts of the Middle East, and small farmers continue growing it to this day (8). In Iran and Afghanistan it was used to dye woolen rugs (54). Safflower probably moved from Afghanistan to China 2,000 years ago, and has served as a medicinal to this day. Early on it was employed as a cosmetic and as a source of dye (55,56). It moved to Japan in the third century A.D., but was little used except as a dye and cosmetic until this century (8). In India it was not used as a dye in early times, but as a purgative (as in Egypt and Africa) and as a medicinal. In recent times, it has been used primarily as an edible oil, and the florets are used in rice, bread, and pickles to gain an orange color. Indian saffron rice is usually colored with safflower. Safflower foliage is used as a source of dried herbs, or brewed into a tea served to prevent miscarriages. Safflower oil is used as an edible oil, (both alone and blended with other oils), as a lamp fuel, and as a soap ingredient. Charred safflower oil is used to treat rheumatism and sores. Safflower seeds are considered a diuretic and tonic (8). In India and Burma safflower leaves are used as a vegetable (57,58). Safflower came to the western hemisphere with Spanish and Portuguese conquerors who grew the flowers in gardens or small plots for limited dye use. It was probably brought into California by early Spaniards, but no references note it until the start of the twentieth century (59). Carl Claassen commented in his remarks at the First International Safflower Conference that when his mother’s family immigrated to Kansas from the Ukraine in 1899, they brought safflower seeds with them and grew them in their garden in central Kansas (60).

Early Work Safflower is first mentioned in the turn-of-the-century report of Shinn (59) outlining observations made at the State of California Foothill Substation. Apparently this work was not continued. In 1925, the United States Department of Agriculture obtained samples of safflower seed from Russia and India. Between 1925 and 1935, various Agricultural Experiment Stations and certain farmer cooperatives conducted safflower trials in cooperation with the USDA. The Huntley, Montana, Experiment Station maintained this material (60). In 1935, Rabak of the USDA issued a circular summarizing the results of these tests (61). The USDA concluded that safflower had possibilities as an oilseed crop for the northern Great Plains and western states (61). In 1928, Alfred Rehbein, Sr., a Montana farmer, imported some seed presumably from Russia and later India, and began to experiment with the crop (62). He became obsessed with safflower production and over the next four decades conducted many agricultural experiments and entered into correspondence with many paint company researchers. By the mid-1930s, he had produced a small amount of safflower oil experimentally and forwarded samples to various companies for testing. Over the next several years results of this testing were published in the technical press (63–69).

History

9

Between 1932 and 1935, Rehbein collected letters from several paint companies that had tested samples of safflower oil, comparing it to linseed oil and soybean oil in a number of products. Most gave it good marks and suggested that it should be priced 1¢/lb under linseed oil (Abstracts of Reports Recorded by Alfred Rehbein, 1936). During the early 1930s, Deming Oil Mill extracted small amounts of safflower oil through expellers after decortication. It is unclear where Deming obtained its crushing stock—whether from Rehbein or locally, Kenneth A. Earhart reported that when he was an alkyd resin chemist in Devoe and Reynolds three or four drums of safflower oil were obtained from Deming Mills prior to 1936, and that the safflower alkyds produced were considered to be the best ever to be produced by the company (Kenneth A. Earhart, personal communication, October 4, 1985). Europeans were also evaluating safflower. In 1919, Mann and Kanitkar wrote a report on safflower (70). Honcamp et al. did a comprehensive study of safflower meal in 1929 (71). By 1937, van Loon (72) of Delft had issued a comprehensive report comparing safflower oil extracted from Indian seed obtained from Hull in 1925 and Liverpool in 1927 with seed obtained from Rehbein in 1934. His conclusion was that “safflower oil is worthy of attention with respect to properties, potential uses and price.” Van Loon reported that small quantities of safflower oil for edible use were being produced in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. Australia also began to investigate safflower in 1940, and the work was summarized by Pugsley and Winter in 1947 (73). This booklet contained information on safflower cropping trials from 1940–46 in South Australia by Pugsley and others, and detailed studies of alkyd, paints, and varnishes prepared by Winter and his associates. Winter’s enthusiastic endorsement of safflower oil. “Safflower oil could replace linseed oil in most organic coating compositions, and in some instances, improved coatings would be obtained,” probably created more enthusiasm for safflower oil research in the United States than any other single publication. Every reference on safflower work for years afterward referred to Pugsley and Winter. Back in the United States, Cargill Incorporated began to take an interest in safflower production in the mid-1940s, initially motivated by Rehbein’s initiatives. but later finding more grower acceptance in states other than Montana. Chapter 5 contains more complete coverage of Cargill’s efforts. During 1947 and 1948, they purchased 1,000 tons/year, but their interest waned in part due to the death of Claude Halderman, who had been promoting the project within Cargill.

The Chemurgy Project and Carl E. Claassen The most important effort concerning safflower production took place in Nebraska in 1940 with the creation of the Chemurgy Project at the University of Nebraska. The State of Nebraska decided to evaluate a number of crops to determine if any could become “a significant contributor to the agricultural and industrial economy of the State of Nebraska” (74).

10

Safflower

Carl E. Claassen, a young graduate student, was hired in December 1941 as a Research Agronomist at the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station to do research on a possible new crop (75). He moved to Lincoln in early 1942. After one year of testing many new crops, safflower was chosen as the most promising, and a breeding program was started (60). Claassen had been introduced to safflower by Gaines, a wheat breeder at the Pullman Experiment Station. Gaines had picked up a sample in Russia on a trip in the mid-1930s. The seed was similar to that grown by Claassen’s family in Kansas, and had an oil content of about 22–24%. Claassen established extensive correspondence with agronomists in other western states and overseas. He obtained some of the Indian types being maintained at the Huntley, Montana, Sub-Station and found them to be quite different from the Russian material. Starting with 10 different varieties to test in 1942 in eight Nebraska locations, he was able to add introductions from India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, and Romania. The Huntley seed was so mixed that Claassen bulked it with introductions he obtained from India, all of which had an oil content in the 22–29% range. The introductions from Sudan had oil contents ranging from 33–35% and single plant selections of Egyptian seed ranged from 36–37% (76). The Chemurgy Project was the brainchild of Leo M. Christensen, who became its Director. Besides providing Claassen with a venue to begin his program of introduction, testing, and breeding, the Chemurgy Project also produced literature and pilot plant research on methods for extracting safflower meal, encouraged testing and feeding of safflower meal, and attempted to determine how safflower oil could be refined and marketed. The Chemurgy Project was a product of the fervor sweeping through parts of the United States at the time, fueled by a combination of Henry Ford’s passion for developing multiple markets for U.S. soybeans, George Washington Carver’s publicized work in building a better peanut culture, a wartime desire to produce substitutes for imported products, and finally a craving by U.S. farmers to find new crops to diversify their cropping base. The Chemurgic Digest magazine, published from 1949–79, reflected this desire for change through agricultural means. Claassen’s yield trials in various parts of the state showed reasonably good results in the Nebraska panhandle. In 1945 he published a bulletin outlining what had been learned about safflower culture (26), and followed this with several additional publications between 1945 and 1949 (77–80). Additional cropping data was published in the Chemurgy Project Industrial Survey (74). Christensen, Claassen, and others from the Project held meetings, corresponded, and did all they could to promote positive thinking about safflower. There was no safflower industry at the time, and the Project tried to act as a coordinator in the commercialization of the crop. Claassen’s correspondence and release of lines for testing encouraged other universities and experimental stations to begin or renew consideration of the feasibility of safflower projects in other western states. In connection with a Master’s thesis I was writing at the time, I obtained letters from the researchers listed in Table 1.2, illustrating the results of Claassen’s efforts in their states. Claassen’s introductions may have totaled 100 lines. These were tested for several years in replicated yield trials, and Claassen began to select for increased yield

History

TABLE 1.2

11

Summary of Early Safflower Testing in the Western United States

State/Institution

Researcher

Comments

Univ. of Arizona

Aepli/Thomas

Univ of California

Knowles

Colorado A&M

Tucker

Univ. of Idaho Kansas State

Klages Zahnley

Minnesota Montana State

Hayes Eslick

New Mexico A&M

Overpeck

North Dakota State

Stoa

Oklahoma A&M

Ligon

Oregon State South Dakota A&M

Dahl Franzke

Texas A&M

Miller

Utah State Washington State

Pittman Kellenbarger

Wyoming

Quay

3,000 lb/acre yields; combines easily; needs market. Published in 2-page typewritten bulletin in 1949. Good results in trials; contracting beginning. Mimeographed bulletin in September 1949. Printed bulletin in October 1949. Testing started in 1946; yields on dry land variable. Published a 1-page mimeographed bulletin in 1950. 2,000 pound yields; optimistic, but no market available. Recommended waiting another year for release of bet ter varieties. Published a 2-page mimeographed bulletin in February 1950. No recommendation. Processing plant in Montana needed before crop can be raised in Montana. Not adapted to southern part of state. Yields not satis factory in the north. Tested at Fargo from 1928–39, 1934 bulletin recom mended against production. The November 1947 3page mimeograph bulletin was more positive. Results very poor for several years’ testing. Printed Bulletin B-307 included recommendation against growing. Not competing with wheat. Considerable testing; we are not ready to back saf flower. Commercial trials not satisfactory; better varieties needed. Trial plot exciting; no good varieties available. Much data; a most promising crop but it has problems maturing before rain. Testing from 1930; need higher oil content types and a local industry.

and Oil content (37). Initially Claassen released the Indian line, a mixture of Hindustan introductions, Pusa 2, Pusa 7, Ahmednager 1, Simla, Sholapur, and Kardai, in 1945 (74). It was predominantly orange-flowered and up to 5% of the plants were nearly spineless. It was slow growing in its early stages and early maturing, but it offered an oil content of only 28% oil. Nebraska 55 was released next and was a uniform type selected from Pusa 14, a Hindustan introduction. It had pure orange flowers and was equal to Indian in yield ability, but had an oil content that was 2% higher. The most important variety released by Claassen was Nebraska N-852. It was a mass selection out of an introduction from Sudan. It featured rapid early growth, early maturity, comparable or superior yield to that of Indian and N-55, and most importantly, it offered an oil content of 32%. Here was a variety that truly made commercial sense (74). Claassen began work on purifying further selections, and Nebraska 1–9 evolved. Most importantly, Albert Hoffman, a student at the University of Nebraska, was hired by Claassen as a graduate assistant, and a long-time association and friendship started.

12

Safflower

The Chemurgy Project also engaged in pilot-plant work in processing safflower seed (74). A V.W. Anderson Company Red Lion expeller was obtained and instituted in the Marr Industries plant at Fremont, Nebraska. A number of experiments were conducted trying to decorticate safflower. Those on the project concluded that a Bauer disk huller did the best job and made suggestions for constructing special disc plates for the huller to limit losses. They concluded that seed must be screened prior to decortication to remove fines and that after passing through the decorticator, two aspirations would be required to separate meats and hulls properly. Based on their expeller tests, they concluded that with decortication, expelling could expect to achieve 5% residual oil in the meal if proper settling were provided. They also found that if the expeller temperature exceeded 257°F darkened safflower oil resulted yet temperatures needed to exceed 250°F to maximize extraction efficiency. They also recommended that the feed seed moisture be reduced to a 2–4%. Finally they recommended that for best commercial results, solvent extraction be considered, and that a combination of prepressing and solvent extraction should work well (74,81, Miller, H., and L.M. Christensen, Unpublished Report of Chemurgy Project, University of Nebraska, 1946). The Chemurgy Project also encouraged testing of decorticated safflower meal in the University’s Animal Husbandry unit and, when used to feed lambs and steers, produced satisfactory results compared to regular soybean meal. Additionally, the project conducted an extensive literature survey concerning all available information on safflower. The Project also speculated that safflower hulls would make a practical source of furfural (Baker, M., Unpublished Report of Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Nebraska, 1945). Claassen and Christensen encouraged farmers in western Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and Wyoming to try safflower. Business Week reported that “Alliance Safflower Co. of Alliance, Nebraska, was offering farmers $3.50 percwt to produce 250 acres to act as a source of planting seed for a much larger acreage in 1945” (82). In 1947, Chemical Crops, Inc., was incorporated to act as a buying agency for seed from growers. Christensen was a vice president of the company, and still retained his position with the Chemurgy Project. This gave the company some advantage in obtaining the newer varieties when they were first introduced. In 1949, Western Solvents, Inc., was incorporated and construction of a threeexpeller mill began in a steel and concrete building on a 5-acre site in Longmont, Colorado. Christensen also became an officer in this firm and a consulting chemist for Petroleum Specialties, Inc., in St. Louis; a company chosen to market safflower oil for Western Solvent. Thus, a start had been made toward the commercialization of safflower in the United States. References 1. Rawlinson, H., History of Egypt, London, 1881. 2. Lucas, A., Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 4th edn., Arnold, London, 1962. 3. Howard, A., G.L., Howard, and A.R. Khan, Mem. Dept. Agric., India. Bot. Ser. 3: 281 (1910). 4. Pfister, H., Revue des Artes Asiatiques XI: 210 (1937).

History

13

5. De Candolle, A., Origin of Cultivated Plants, R.W. Hofner Co., New York, [1890] 1967. 6. Breitschneider, E., On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, Foochow, China. 7. Breitschneider, E., Medical Researches from Asiatic Sources, 2 vol., 1870. 8. Weiss, E.A., Castor, Sesame, and Safflower, Barnes and Noble, Inc., New York, 1971, pp. 529–554. 9. Salunkhe, D.K., J.K. Charan, R.N. Adjule, and S.S. Kadam, World Oilseeds, Van Nostrand, Reinhold, New York, 1992, p. 326. 10. Weiss, E.A., Castor, Sesame, and Safflower, Barnes and Noble, Inc., New York, 1971, p. 742. 11. Simmonds, N.W. (ed.), Evolution of Crop Plants, Longman, New York, 1976, pp. 219–233. 12. Huber, J., J. Soc. Dyers Colourists XXV: 223 (1909). 13. Keimer, L., Die Gartendflanzen im alten Ägypten, Hamburg, Germany, 1924. 14. Schweinfurth, G., Bot. Jahrb. 8: 1 (1887). 15. Schweinfurth, G., Ber. dt. bot. Ges. 2: 351 (1887). 16. Doby, G., Plant Biochemistry, Interscience Publishers, New York, 1965. 17. Knowles, P.F., in Evolution of Crop Plants, edited by N.W. Simmons, Longman, New York, 1976, p. 31. 18. Vavilov, N.I., The Origin, Variation, Immunity, and Breeding of Cultural Plants, Ronald Press Company, New York, 1951. 19. Kupsow, A.I., Bull. Appt. Bot. Genet. Pl. Breed. Ser. 9: 99 (1932). 20. Hanelt, P., Systematic Study of the Genus Carthamus L. (Compositae) A Monographic Review, Ph.D. Thesis (in German), Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenburg, Germany, 1961. 21. Ashri, A., Divergence and Evolution in the Safflower Genus, Carthamus, Final Research Report for USDA PL 480 Project No. A-10-CR-18, Hebrew University, Rehovot, Israel, 1973. 22. Ashri, A., and P.F. Knowles, Agron. J. 52: 11 (1960). 23. Ashri, A., and P.F. Knowles, Abst. A. Mtg. Am. Soc. Agron., 1977, p. 50. 24. Hooker, and Jackson, in Characterization and Evaluation of Safflower Germ Plasm, edited by D. Li, M. Zhou, and V.R. Rao, Geological Publishing House, Beijing, 1993, pp. 234–235. 25. Yuan, G., D. Li, et al., Safflower Genetic Resources and Their Utilization, Science and Technology Publishing House, Beijing, 1989. 26. Knowles, P.F., Safflower in California: A Personal History of Plant Explaration and Research on Evolution, Genetics, and Breeding, Report No. 14, University of California, Genetics Resources Conservation Program, Davis, California, in press. 27. Knowles, P.F., in Oil Crops of the World, edited by G. Röbbelen, R.K. Downey, and A. Ashri, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, 1989, p. 367. 28. Imrie, B.C., and P.F. Knowles, Crop Sci. 10: 349 (1970). 29. Imrie, B.C., and P.F. Knowles, Crop Sci. 11: 6 (1971). 30. Ramanamurthy, C.V., Relationships of Cultivated Safflower, Carthamus tinctorius L. to the Wild Species, C. oxyacantha M.B. Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Davis, California, 1963. 31. Knowles, P.F., and S.C. Schank, Crop Sci. 4: 596 (1964). 32. Knowles, P.F., Economic Bot. 23: 324 (1969).

14

Safflower

33. Ashri, A. D.E. Zimmer, A.L. Urie, and P.F. Knowles, Theor. App. Genet. 46: 395 (1975). 34. Estilai, A., Crop Sci. 17: 800 (1977). 35. Estilai, A., and P.F. Knowles, Can. J. Genet. Cytol. 20: 221 (1978). 36. Harvey, B.L., and P.F. Knowles, Can. J. Genet. Cytol. 7: 126 (1965). 37. Khidir, M.O., and P.F. Knowles, Can. J. Genet. Cytol. 12: 90 (1970). 38. Khidir, M.O., and P.F. Knowles, Amer. J. Bot. 57: 123 (1970). 39. Estilai, A., and P.F. Knowles, Amer. J. Bot. 63: 771 (1976). 40. Ingram, J.S., Trop. Sci. 11: 177 (1969). 41. Mandan, C.L., B.M. Kapur, and U.S., Gupta, Econ. Bot. 20: 377 (1966). 42. Hasselquist, F., Reise nach Palastina, Rostock, Russia, 1762. 43. Forshal, P., Flora Ägyptiaco-Arabica, Hauniae, 1775. 44. Reif, W., Lustgarten der Gesundheit, Frankfurt, Germany, 1546. 45. Bock, H., Kreyter-Busch, Strasbourg, 1951. 46. Reinecke, K.L., Flora von Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany, 1914. 47. Darpoux, M.H., C.R. Acad. Agric. Franc. 34: 131 (1948). 48. Kupsow, A.I., Kulturnaja Flora S.S.S.R. 7: 437 (1941). 49. Benvenuti, A., Proc. Convegno Nazionale Sulle Sementi di Piente Oliefere, Bologna University, 1964. 50. Rennier, S., Economie Publique et Rurale des Arabes et des Juifs, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1820. 51. Low, I., Die Flora der Juden, vol. 1, Vienna, 1926. 52. Celakovsky, L., Prodromus der Flora von Bohmen, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1867. 53. Beck, G. von M., Flora von Nieder-Osterreich II, Vienna, 1893. 54. Scheibe, V.E., Pflanzenhau 11; 49 (1935). 55. Wagner, W., Die Chinesische Landwirtschaft, Berlin, Germany, 1926. 56. Li, S., Compendium of Materia Medica 15, China, 1600, pp. 966–968. 57. Akroyd, W.R., Health Bulletin No. 23, 4th edn., Ministry of Health, New Delhi, India, 1951. 58. Mollinson, J., A Textbook of Indian Agriculture, Vol. III: Field and Garden Crops of the Bombay Presidency, Bombay, India, 1901, pp. 98–101. 59. Shinn, C.H., Cultural Work in Sub-Stations, 1899–1901, Bull. 147, Calif. Agric. Exp. Sta., California, 1903. 60. Claassen, C.E., Proceedings of the First International Safflower Conference, University of California, Davis, California, 1987, pp. 28–35. 61. Rabak, F., Safflower, a Possible New Oilseed Crop for the Northern Great Plains and the Far Western States, Circ. 366, USDA, Washington, 14 pp. (1935). 62. Rehbein, A., Sr., Montana Farmer-Stockman 35: 6 (1948). 63. Carrick, L.L., and H.K. Nielsen, Am. Paint Jour. 22: 44 pp. 7–9, 18–22, 22–23, 26 (1938). 64. Carrick, L.L., and H.K. Nielsen, Am. Paint Jour. 22: 45 pp. 13–16, 20–21, 44–46 (1938). 65. Carrick, L.L., and H.K. Nielsen, Am. Paint Jour. 22: 47 pp. 12, 14, 43, 48 (1938). 66. Carrick, L.L., and H.K. Nielsen, Am. Paint Jour. 22: 48 pp. 20–21, 24, 26, 28–29 (1938). 67. Carrick, L.L., and H.K. Nielsen, Am. Paint Jour. 22: 49 pp. 52–56, 58, 60 (1938).

History

15

68. Scofield, F., Natl. Paint Varnish Lacquer Assoc. Sci. Sect. Cir. 519, 522, (1936). 69. Remington, J.S., Paint Manuf. 6: 50 (1936). 70. Mann, H.H., and N.V. Kanitker, Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind. 38: 36 (1919). 71. Honcamp, F., et al., Tierernahr 1: 3 (1929). 72. Van Loon, J., Verfkronief 10: 280, 282 (1937). 73. Pugsley, A. T., and G. Winter, Australian Munitions Supply Labs Rpt. No. 171, 57 pp. 1947. 74. Woodward, R.E., Industrial Survey of Safflower, Chemurgy Project, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, 56 pp. 1949. 75. Muir, J., The Farm Quarterly, pp. 88, 168–172, 1960. 76. Claassen, C.E., and T.A. Kiesselbach, Experiments with Safflower in Western Nebraska, Bull. 376, Neb. Agric. Exp. Sta., 28 pp. 1945. 77. Claassen, C.E., Chemurgic Dig. 7: 11 (1948). 78. Claassen, C.E., Nebraska Sta. Circ. 87, 23 pp. 1949. 79. Claassen, C.E., M.L. Schuster, and W.W. Ray, Plant Disease Reporter 33: 73 (1949). 80. Claassen, C.E., and A. Hoffman, Crops Soils 1 (1949). 81. Chemurgy Project, Fifth Annual Report, Bulletin 6, University of Nebraska, 1947. 82. Business Week, p. 50, July 22, 1944.

Chapter 2

The Early Days of the Industry Choosing a Location Even though Claassen had provided a seed that made safflower commercially feasible, the companies trying to start a safflower business in the Great Plains faced difficult odds. The first, second, and third problems were the weather. Safflower needs a minimum of 120 days to mature after planting; a minimum of 10 inches of rainfall, but not more than 20 inches; and finally, soils that will hold moisture and are deep enough to allow safflower’s root structure to reach for water. Figure 2.1 displays a map, based on Climate and Man (1) that I prepared for my Master’s thesis, illustrating the limited areas of the United States to which safflower is adapted (2). The areas receiving 20–24 inches of rainfall were considered marginal, and history has shown these areas to be basically unsuccessful for safflower production. Because there are summer rains in the Plains, safflower can develop serious head and leaf rot diseases, particularly if enough rain falls at or after time of flowering. In addition, safflower was not a good early weed competitor and in a cool spring it could be overwhelmed by faster growing weeds. Al Hoffman liked to remark that the way he and Carl Claassen would find safflower fields in western Nebraska in the late 1940s was to get on top of a hill and look for weed patches. There would usually be a field of safflower under the weeds, struggling to compete. Claassen had included Paul F. Knowles of U.C. Davis in the group of researchers he had enlisted to try safflower. Knowles was a native of Canada who came to the University of California at Davis in 1947 after receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. Although he originally worked on flax, sesame, or other oilseeds, he became interested in safflower after trying the seeds Claassen sent him. In 1947 and 1948 the yields Knowles obtained were very promising (Table 2.1). During this same period, Claassen had been making winter increases of his promising new selections using a friend from Kansas days, Richard Hoagland, to handle this work in California’s Imperial Valley (3). Hoagland became excited about safflower’s potential as a crop in California and made several trips to Nebraska to learn more from Claassen and to encourage him to visit California. In 1948, Claassen was awarded his Ph.D. and in the fall of the following year made a trip to California to survey the situation. By this time several companies in Nebraska, Colorado, California, and Arizona were involved in increasing Indian and N-55 (and subsequently N-5, 6, 8, and 9) varieties for planting seed and trying to obtain N-852 foundation seed to do the same for the following year. Chemical Crops Co. had the only supplies of N-6 and N-9. Oilseed Products Company, Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation, the Glidden Company branch in Buena Park, Anderson Clayton’s Western Cotton Oil, and various 16

The Early Days of the Industry

17

individuals were engaged in planting seed production in California and Arizona; however, none of these groups had experience in growing safflower. Hoagland tried to convince Claassen to resign from the University and join him in starting a planting seed production and promotion company in California. Claassen used his trip to visit all of California’s oil processing companies, Knowles, and a number of local farmers.

Getting Started in California He reached the conclusion that safflower production had a better chance in California than in the Midwest. In California there were several experienced oil

Figure 2.1. Land climatically suited to safflower.

18

TABLE 2.1

Safflower

Results of Early Safflower Tests in California

Variety or Strain

First Flowering

Date Mature

Height (inches)

Yield lb/Acre

Percent Oil

4/ 1 4/ 1 4/17

5/12 5/12 5/25 8/ 7 8/ 2 8/ 9 8/10 8/ 8 8/11 7/23 7/24 7/24 7/22 7/26 7/23 7/24 7/25

38 48 48 43 45 54 50 49 58 43 46 44 45 48 45 54 45

1,639 2,110 1,765 3,157 3,022 3,304 2,977 2,878 2,729 3,749 3,166 2,956 2,696 2,563 2,370 2,297 2,229

30.5 35.1 30.5 28.9 32.7 30.8 29.7 27.7 29.8 34.1 32.3 27.2 33.8 31.0 28.8 27.9 28.6

Indianaa N-852a,b N-804a Indianc N-852b,c N-472-2c,d N-514-2-10c,e N-461-1c,f N-804-21c,g N-852b,h N-803-16h,l N-4h N-7h N-5h N-3h N-2h N-1h

6/ 8 6/10 6/12 6/11 6/16 6/12 6/11 6/18

aTests under irrigation in Imperial Valley in 1946–47, planted November 5 in rows 24” apart. bN-852 planted in Feb., harvested in late July at Shafter California, yielded 2,894 lb/acre with a 33.9% oil content. cTest was sown at Davis on January 30, 1948 in rows 24” apart with one irrigation in the spring. dNebraska Variety no. N-5 eNebraska Variety no. N-3 fNebraska Variety no. N-4 gNebraska Variety no. N-2 hRecent Nebraska varieties compared at Davis in 1949 rows spaced 18 inches apart. Planted early January/midFebruary. Because of cold January weather, all matured at about the same time. iSimilar to N-6. Source: Knowles (6).

milling companies interested in adding safflower to their product mix. In Nebraska and Colorado there were only inexperienced, underfinanced startup companies that were totally dependent on safflower’s success. Upon his return to Nebraska, Claassen resigned from the University and arranged with the Director of Agriculture of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station to take a portion of all breeding materials with him. Claassen and Hoagland formed a partnership, Western Oilseeds Company, and Claassen moved to California in March of 1950, first to Bakersfield, then to Chico, and ultimately to Woodland (3, author interview of Claassen, January 19, 1988). In February, 1949, Knowles published a brief, illustrated report (4). In September he followed this up with a more detailed mimeographed report (5), and in October he produced a printed bulletin that had essentially the same wording (6). Sabin of the USDA released a bulletin in January 1950 (7). Interest increased, especially after Claassen released the Nebraska bulletin in 1949 (8) and the articles by Claassen and Hoffman (9) and Matlock (10). Oil Seed Products Co. (L.L. “Jim” Touton and Charles W. Koch) were the most venturesome of the Californians interested in safflower during 1949. Koch visited

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Claassen in Nebraska in the summer of 1949, purchased a supply of N-852 seed from Bruce Lane of Chemical Crops, made a loose alliance with Richard Hoagland to get acreage plante in the Imperial Valley, and maintained an active correspondence with Paul Knowles at Davis (Personal correspondence between Knowles/Touton/Koch between July 22, 1949 and September 25, 1950). In July, 1949, Claassen authorized Knowles to release seed to Oil Seed Products Co. from University of California at Davis tests of Nebraska seed, and this helped to circumvent the monopoly in N-6 and N-9 seed held by Chemical Crops. Oil Seed Products obtained enough seed to plant about 16,000 acres in the Imperial and San Joaquin Valleys for the 1950 harvest. Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation made its first enquiries about safflower planting seed in August of 1949 (PVO letter of August 11, 1949, J.R. Giansiracusa to P.F. Knowles), but within weeks it had located enough seed to allow contracting with growers. The Glidden Company announced plans for planting and contracting for 1,000 acres in Yuma. In the years 1947–50, some of the same seed was sold several times to different buyers; prices for planting seed eventually climbed to $0.25/lb, and the claims of acreage planted in the western Great Plains turned out to be quite exaggerated. Adding to the excitement about safflower was the shipment of the first tank carload of safflower oil from Western Solvents Inc. to Cook Paint and Varnish Co. This shipment was heralded in the Denver Post and Associated Press (11) on November 28, 1949 and the Rocky Mountain News on November 29 (12). In ceremonies at the Western Solvents plant, a number of speakers participated in a formal ceremony complete with a christening of the tank car by the seven-year-old daughter of the plant’s production manager, and acceptance of the shipment by a representative from Cook Paint.

The Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation had been incorporated in 1924, originally as Pacific Vegetable Oil Company (13). The company was started as a salvage operation to purchase a bankrupt oil-storage plant built in San Francisco by the Archbishop of Manila to store imported coconut oil. The name of this company had been Philippine Vegetable Oil; its initials, PVO, were painted on the side of three huge storage tanks. The name Pacific Vegetable Oil was selected by the new owners in order to be able to continue using the same initials. One of the founding shareholders was B.T. Rocca Sr., known as “Senior” to his friends and employees. Rocca Sr. was a mining engineer but after the fledgling company experienced problems, he was named Manager in 1926 and never looked back. As time went on he acquired stock from his partners and eventually became the largest shareholder of PVO. The Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation originally operated as an importing, storing, and handling business for imported oils, such as coconut, linseed, tung, and later, perilla, rapeseed, and sesame oils. In 1931, a small, three-expeller mill was organized as Pacific Oil Mills Limited on adjacent land, and utilized the newly developed Anderson R.B. expellers. The mill was built to crush Chinese sesame seed, but a revolution suspended shipments from China, and PVO turned to crushing Argentine

20

Safflower

flaxseed. When China opened up again, Chinese flaxseed—and later, perilla, hemp, and sesame seed—were imported in increasing quantities along with babasu kernels, palm kernels, some copra, and kapokseed. An expanding amount of linseed, tung, perilla, and coconut oils began to be imported as well. During the years prior to World War II, Rocca also was forced to lead a fight in Congress to combat crippling duties on all imported oilseeds, duties that ostensibly were to protect the U.S. cottonseed industry. This caused the formation of the National Institute of Oilseed Products (NIOP), which Rocca led as President for 9 years. The battle was successful, winning adjustments in the duties to allow west coast oil mills to compete with Japanese oil mills. In the early 1930s, Rocca’s son, Barney Rocca Jr., began working part-time in the company. After graduation from UC Berkeley in 1937, he joined the company on a full-time basis and eventually worked his way through all phases of the operation. Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation opened sales agencies in Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles and established working relationships with prominent dealers in London, Rotterdam, Australia, and other overseas locations. World War II quickly put a stop to PVO’s imports, and the company was forced to promote production of flaxseed in Califormia. By the end of the war, PVO and the rest of the U.S. oilseed industry had lost their dependency on imported raw material, obtaining raw material from domestically produced soybeans, flaxseed, and cottonseed. During the war, Rocca Jr. went to Washington and became Director of Procurement, Import Division, Fats and Oils Branch of the War Food Administration. He acquired many relationships with international figures and upon returning to PVO at the end of the war, began planning for the company’s further expansion. Before price controls were removed in 1947, PVO obtained large quantities of copra from the Philippines and established buying agencies there and finally hired the Spaniard, Francisco Gonzalez Avila to open a PVO office in Manila. By the start of the 1950s, PVO was supplying 90% of the copra going to Latin America, as well as a significant share of the needs of Europe and Japan, in addition to steady supplies to PVO’s newly opened copra mill in Richmond, California, and its affiliate, Western Vegetable Oil, headed by Adolph Schumann. Much of the Latin American copra business was handled through Rocca-Cuvi Co. Rocca Sr.’s other son, Curtis had returned from Naval service, joined Balfour Guthrie for a short time, and then joined together with Carlos Cuvi, an Ecuadorian, to form the Rocca-Cuvi Co. specializing in Latin American and feedstuff trading. As soon as the war ended, PVO moved to reopen trade with China, particularly in tung oil, and established a joint venture with China Vegetable Oil (CVO), a semi-government company, to rebuild their war-ravaged milling industry and to provide barge transportation from the points of production to Shanghai. L.S. Wong, CVO’s Production Manager, later became a PVO executive. After many trials and tribulations, the barges reached Asia just as Mao Tse Tung marched into Shanghai. Eventually the Communist government re-established relations with PVO because of PVO’s preeminent position in tung oil exportation from China and began additional business in peanuts and sesame seed. This business was destroyed when China marched into Korea over the Yalu River.

The Early Days of the Industry

21

As World War II ended, PVO also began acquiring and exporting cottonseed oil from CCC stockpiles in its own plant and elsewhere. Unilever, in particular, was a large buyer of those products, and PVO developed a lasting relationship with Kurt Kretzschmar, Unilever Chief Buyer. In 1950, PVO had reached a sales volume of $75,000,000 and a net worth of over $3 million, but was faced with the loss of its very profitable tung oil business from China, and a decline in linseed oil processing as water-based products began to seize the paint market. Safflower offered a nice alternative. When I first came to San Francisco in 1950 to search for a job I had never heard of Pacific Vegetable Oil, but many people urged me to interview there. As it turned out, there was no job for a chemist or a chemical engineer; however, Ed Hill, PVO’s Production and Purchasing Manager, hired me as a laboratory dishwasher until something more suitable opened up. I came under the wing of John Kneeland and his chief assistant, George Kopas—my future partner. Kopas showed me the ropes of the lab and how to perform simple analyses, such as running free fatty acids, moisture in meal, and eventually oil contents. Soon I was taking samples in the mill, and gauging tanks on the San Francisco docks. In no time I was running safflower seed oil contents as the 1950 crop began to be harvested. I was given a side job of trying to engineer a better conveying system in PVO’s San Francisco plant. Later, I became Mance Langford’s assistant in organizing the PVO buying program so that safflower production could expand. It was at that time that I met Claassen and Knowles and formed life-long friendships with both of them. During the summer of 1950, before safflower was harvested in California, optimism about the harvest was generally high. However, some of the advice that Carl Claassen had put forth was based on Nebraska experiences, and he soon found that not all of it applied in California. Safflower planted in the Mojave Desert east of Bakersfield ran out of steam; the soil was too sandy and would not hold enough water to sustain safflower. Some early plantings in the San Joaquin Valley, planted on 40-inch cotton or vegetable beds grew well over five feet tall. Frank Coit at Mendota was one of the growers; his safflower towered over him and yielded in excess of 4,000 lbs/acre (Figure 2.2), but his was the exception. Other tall safflower seemed to expend its energy in growing tall, and failed to produce much seed. During the developmental stages of a new crop, many strange, wondrous and frightening things happen. I recall a 1950 phone call from PVO’s Imperial Valley agent, John Brownell, reporting that the crop looked spectacularly beautiful. Literally, the next day, a shaken Brownell called again to report that the crop was dying everywhere he looked. In the course of 2 or 3 days, farmers watered their crops, which were primarily planted flat instead of on beds, during days when the weather ranged between 114–117°F in the shade. The N-852 variety was very susceptible to phytopthora root rot but even more so to scalding, and within a week, much of it was dead. Even though safflower was almost a total failure in the Imperial Valley and parts of the San Joaquin Valley in 1950, PVO’s long-term hold on safflower was indirectly strengthened. Growers in the Imperial Valley refused to even talk to anyone about safflower for 10 years and their caution turned off most people in the San Joaquin

22

Safflower

Figure 2.2 Frank Coit standing in a safflower field where the plants grew in excess of 6’ tall in 1951. Picture taken in Mendota, California.

The Early Days of the Industry

23

Valley as well. Accordingly, all of the cottonseed mills which could have been natural competition for PVO at the start were faced with incredulous growers and the need to develop cultural practices and varieties resistant to root rot. This gave PVO several years of lead time working in the Sacramento Valley where the crop could be and was grown in most cases without irrigation. No other mill, save Cargill, was geographically situated to compete. Liberty Vegetable Oil, the Glidden Company, and California Cotton Oil crushed small amounts of safflower oil but were very disappointed and dismayed with the poor yields that farmers experienced. Oilseed Products Co. continued working with the crop through 1952; however they found that they could only sell oil at prices below soybean oil prices and reluctantly sold most of their oil to PVO. In 1953, they sold their oil mill to Ranchers’ Cotton Oil Co., and it was subsequently converted to a cottonseed oil mill. Rocca Jr. talked to Claassen and encouraged Claassen to end Western Oilseeds’ semiclosed relationship with Oilseed Products Co., and to begin to work with and represent PVO exclusively from that time on. In turn, Rocca offered to prowide financing for Western Oilseeds’ breeding programs and operating expenses. Rocca Jr. reasoned that PVO would have a big advantage versus other oil mills since PVO’s mill was close to the potential growing area so it would have a logistic advantage, but more importantly the cotton oil mills just were not prepared to handle sales to the paint trade. Claassen discussed this with Hoagland, and they agreed that this was their best option, primarily because PVO offered the best market outlet. Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation had an already established business in dealing with the paint and varnish trade, where safflower oil appeared to have its best market. Of the other mills in California—J.G. Boswell, S.A. Camp, Anderson Clayton, Producers Cotton Oil, and Oilseed Products Co.—all in the San Joaquin Valley, none had experience in marketing to the drying oil field. Western Vegetable Oil, Eldorado, and Cargill in the San Francisco Bay Area were primarily involved with copra processing. Liberty Vegetable Oil at Santa Fe Springs, the Glidden Co. in Buena Park, Spencer Kellogg at Long Beach, California Cotton Oil of Los Angeles, and California Flaxseed Corporation in Vernon were the only other ones involved in selling to the drying oil industry. But all of this latter group were in Southern California where safflower had failed in its first big test, and it might take years to develop a safflower variety that was resistant to phytopthora root rot. Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation, with its proximity to the Sacramento Valley where some growers had been successful, was a logical choice not only because of its location, but also because it expressed interest in helping Claassen and Hoagland, whereas some of the other companies began to be indifferent. In PVO’s mill, Hill and Langford applied some of the processing lessons that had been reported by the Nebraska Chemurgy Department (14). Because of the heavy, fibrous hulls on the N-852 variety, a lot of frictional heat was generated. At this point nobody wasted time on decortication efforts, as Nebraska and Longmont had tried to do. In order to stop the safflower oil from scorching as it was passed through the horizontal expeller barrel, water-cooled shafts were employed. These

24

Safflower

did the trick, and the oil produced was 8–9 Gardner for the original color and 1–3 Gardner after heat bleaching. The oil coming from the mill was of beautiful quality and everybody involved was excited about this aspect. If the crop could be grown, it was easy to see that this was a product we could mill and that this was an oil that would almost sell itself to paint manufacturers. Joe Siracusa, Dale Dybbro, who was moved from refinery duties, and Jim Taylor, who joined the company in late 1950, were given the job of selling safflower meal to the California feed trade. It was to prove to be a tough battle, but at this stage many field mixers were willing to give it a try, hoping an X factor existed in the meal that analyses did not reveal. Some of the early Midwestern tests led people to believe that it could stand up to soybean meal on a per unit of protein basis (15,16). In 1950, approximately 23,000 acres of safflower had been contracted and planted in California on behalf of all buyers. In most cases growers were promised a price of $70–75/short ton delivered to the oil mill. But by the time the harvest was finished, it was apparent that only 10,000 acres had been harvested, and much of what was harvested did not meet growers’ expectations. After a series of meetings between Hill, Langford, Claassen, Hoagland, and me, it was decided that we needed to concentrate our efforts in the Sacramento Valley. Claassen reasoned that several years would be needed to develop good phytopthora resistance before safflower could be grown successfully on San Joaquin and Imperial Valley irrigated acreage. In the meantime, safflower could be grown successfully on the heavy soils in the Sacramento Valley and Delta region, which could hold water well and allow rotation with crops such as beans, rice, barley, and wheat (3). Claassen—who displayed the attributes necessary to promote and develop a new crop; an almost religious zeal to push the crop forward; a good researcher’s eye, capable of seeing things in a field when others would just walk on by; and a single-mindedness and dedication willing to work 25 hours/day to get the job done—moved his residence and office from Bakersfield to Chico, in the north end of the Sacramento Valley. He commanded the respect of the farmers because he was able to talk to them on their own terms, and he was not afraid to admit mistakes and adapt some of the lessons learned in the first year in California.

The PVO Plan We began to adopt a series of steps that we felt were necessary to get safflower started. Over time we adapted these steps into a method that we successfully used over and over in other areas of the country and the world to promote safflower and consolidate PVO’s position. The first step was to design a simple contract form of one page that could be easily understood by growers, bankers, and farm advisors (Figure 2.3). This step also included adopting a program that would provide good quality planting seed to the grower, the cost of which could be deducted from the proceeds of his harvest. The second step was to meet as early as possible with the local farm advisors of the California Extension Service to enlist their aid in providing local farmers accurate information about safflower and establishing careful yield and observation trials with

The Early Days of the Industry

Figure 2.3. PVO grower contract form.

25

26

Safflower

farmer cooperatives. These tests would be used to measure yield potential, oil content, and other quality characteristics for safflower seed produced locally and to determine what practices were the most practical to enhance production and yield. The work with the Farm Advisors needed the cooperation of the State’s Extension Service Administrators and the University of California’s Agronomy Department. Knowles lent his full cooperation in helping to coordinate this effort and helping the farm advisors set up their best plots. The third step was to explain what safflower was, how it was grown, what potential markets existed, how safflower could be produced at a profit, and to explain that PVO would be willing to contract with growers in advance at a guaranteed price. These explanations were carried personally to bank officers, newspaper editors and reporters, elevators and country buyers, and trucking companies—anyone and everyone who might be affected by a safflower crop. This effort was enhanced by the publication of a two-color bulletin that contained the facts (17), and which PVO and Western Oilseeds would mail to several thousand recipients. The third step was assisted by publications and news about safflower oil that continued to reach the press during this starting period (18–20). The farm press carried continuing reports on crop progress (21–23). Next, the two companies organized grower meetings all over the area to take the message to each locality. These meetings gave potential growers, farm advisors, university personnel, and local businessmen a chance to ask questions and make comments about safflower before their peers and hear answers from PVO and Western Oilseeds personnel. It was also emphasized at each meeting that Western Oilseeds would provide field service free of charge to growers who had questions about the progress of their crop. Of course, PVO needed to do more than just encourage farmers to produce safflower. It was necessary to inform the market that safflower oil and meal were available, to explain why buyers should use it, and to encourage those buyers to do research to find new or expanded uses for safflower products. In turn, PVO began research to improve milling and refining techniques and to develop new grades of safflower oil to give the PVO sales force a more diverse set of products to sell. Finally, PVO encouraged outside research on the utilization of safflower oil and meal. The University of California Animal Husbandry unit was approached to begin running total digestible unit tests on California-produced safflower meal. We began to search for a firm to perform research studies on certain industrial uses of safflower oil. In early 1951, PVO published the first of a series of bulletins on safflower oil that continued to be published for the next 20 years. Finally, PVO made two key decisions that distinguished this program from anything that had gone before. Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation had a history of rewarding good employee performance with bonus payments. We decided to apply this method to grower contracts, offering to pay growers a bonus based on the results of PVO’s marketing efforts, over the guaranteed floor price we were offering, after harvest. This was probably the first example of contract farming for a nonperishable crop (24). Secondly, we offered a full year’s supply of safflower oil to buyers willing to contract for the oil produced from the upcoming 1951 harvest. This was the first time

The Early Days of the Industry

27

that industrial oil consumers had been offered a forward contract so far in advance and for such an extended period. These people were used to buying oil on a spot basis. We reasoned that if we could maintain stable prices for our buyers contracting in advance would make sense for them, since they would have no fear of fluctuating prices, and it would minimize the risk of contracting ahead with growers. Three events occurred in late 1950 that helped PVO’s program succeed. After the 1950 debacle in California, PVO needed a miracle to promote acreage in 1951. The miracle turned up in the form of George Tarke. Tarke, typical of many Sacramento Valley farmers, was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and farmed pink and baby lima beans on the rich, flat lands near Meridien, California. While most farmers had been very disappointed with their 1950 safflower crop, Tarke and his brother Fred had succeeded in producing 3,400 pounds/acre on sizable plantings (Figure 2.4). Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation convinced George Tarke to speak at several growers’ meetings in late 1950 and early 1951, and his sincere testimony helped carry the day. The second truly fortuitous break for safflower development occurred during the 24th Fall Meeting of the American Oil Chemists Society on September 26–29. The Wednesday, September 27 session featured a mini-symposium on Safflower Seed Oil, featuring four talks on various applications for safflower oil (Chapter 8, [25–28]). These papers gave safflower oil more national attention, and Milton Silverman, science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle picked up on it (29). The third factor that occurred during this period was the beginning of a drought in the Great Plains that continued for the next 5 years. It spelled doom for companies like Western Solvents Inc. which failed by 1952, was strated again by other entrepreneurs under the name of Western Safflower Products, and failed again to be sold at an RFC auction and dismantled in 1953. Chemical Crops, Inc., and Safflower Enterprises, Inc., also failed the same year. Production of safflower seed was dismal in that region, causing defaults on oil shipments and eventual bankruptcy for all of the companies involved. This, combined with the poor results in Southern California in 1950 did give safflower oil a poor reputation with some consumers, but much more importantly, it removed all of PVO’s competition and provided the start of their market domination for the next 10 seasons.

Conclusions During safflower’s early years in California, much needed to be learned concerning which areas of the state were suited to the crop, the ideal planting dates for each area, and the cultural practices that would do the best job. Farmers from every region of the state were eager to try growing some; since we were eager to expand production, we cooperated with them if we felt the crop had a reasonable chance. In many instances, the farmers wanting to try safflower were not the best producers in their areas, but rather were the ones who had tried everything else already and were in need of a quick fix to stay in business.

28

Safflower

Figure 2.4. George Tarke in an outstanding field that produced 4,000 lbs/acre in 1951. Picture taken in Meridien, California.

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29

We quickly learned that the high country around Susanville had neither the moisture nor the growing season to sustain a year-in, year-out crop. Lake County was similar to Susanville in this regard. It quickly became apparent that the fields in the Imperial Valley, with a high salt content would not sustain a safflower crop and, in fact, the high water costs of all of the Imperial Valley would not allow safflower to compete with higher paying crops. The sandy soils around Merced, Modesto, Riverbank, and Ripon proved to be uneconomical—safflower was found to need a soil type that would hold moisture better. A lot of effort was also put into trying safflower in the high country around Alturas in Tule County of far northern California, but this effort failed in the long run. The upper end of the Sacramento Valley, north of Redding or Red Bluff, was found to be unprofitable for safflower and the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, which is basically divided into smaller farms with smaller private water systems also proved to be uneconomical. The very heavy rice soils in the Biggs region of the northern Sacramento Valley also could not be adapted to good safflower yields although several schemes were tried. Knowles of UC Davis and his flax-growing friends in the Half Moon Bay area tried safflower, but they soon learned that it could not adapt to the foggy summer days experienced at flowering time. All of the farmers in the coastal valleys that tried it soon discovered the crop developed well early on, but flowering time brought a beautiful case of botrytis, and none of the blossoms developed further. A lot of safflower was planted in the rolling hills on the western side of the Sacramento Valley from Vacaville to Williams, but over time, it became apparent that safflower would only do reasonably well in that country in a season of high rainfall and often that was not the case. In the Paso Robles/Templeton area, similar observations were made, but the farmers in that area found that certain canyons seem to pick up a little more moisture than others and production, although small, has remained around Paso Robles. Irrigation water was plentiful in the Vacaville to Woodland area, but most who tried it found the shallower soils from Vacaville to Dixon did not really produce a significant increase over dry land production and in some cases, production was worse. In the dry years of the late 1980s, irrigation in the area west of Woodland on fields with three rows on beds had met with some success. In the early days, safflower also had a hard time competing with weeds in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Delta, and it never did well on true peat soils. Later, as Treflan became available farmers learned to do better with safflower in the Delta, and it is now one of the most productive safflower areas. As the years progressed, safflower production settled into some fairly well-defined areas in California: 1. The dry lake beds and surrounding areas of Kern and Tulare counties on the southwest side of the San Joaquin Valley; 2. The west side of the San Joaquin Valley from Huron to Los Banos; 3. A small area south of Stockton to Tracy; 4. The San Joaquin/Sacramento Delta area, particularly Roberts; Merritt, Ryer, and Sherman Islands; and the areas near the River from Thornton to Clarksburg;

30

Safflower

5. The Yolo and Sutter Bypasses and Liberty Island; and 6. The central part of the Sacramento Valley from Woodland to Chico, except for the heavier rice soils. In the 1950s, the State of California Extension Service fielded an exceptional group of young Farm Advisors in the Sacramento Valley and Delta region, eager to try new ideas in the hope of finding broader markets for local farmers. They were not afraid to speak on behalf of safflower production and to encourage the most cooperative farmers in their counties to plant yield, cultural, and observation trials. These individuals cooperated well with Knowles, Claassen, and me in lining up helpful and productive meetings and trials during much of the decade. Claassen and Hoagland increased Claassen’s N-6 and N-8 varieties, and so in 1951 three types were available, rather than just the N-852 used in 1950, N-8 was believed to do best on irrigated land and was capable of producing a higher oil content. The N-6 type exhibited much larger heads (and spines) and tended to be taller as well. It was touted to be especially suited for subirrigated land, and N-852 remained as the reliable type for dry land production. However, Claassen and Hoagland decided they would have to add another person if Western Oilseeds was to increase its research efforts for new seeds, since much of their time was spent contracting work with growers and providing field advice for growers producing safflower for both oil and planting seed. Al Hoffman, Claassen’s former assistant, was enticed to leave the University of Nebraska and come to Western Oilseeds in 1952. Although the Glidden Co., Liberty Vegetable Oil, and California Flaxseed Co. produced and expeller-processed small amounts of safflower seed in the 1950–52 period in Southern California, all became disinterested because of a series of meal fires, lack of satisfactory planting seed, and general grower dissatisfaction with the crop in Southern California. The way was open for PVO and Western Oilseeds to operate a virtual monopoly. References 1. Climate and Man, USDA, Washington, D.C., 1941, p. 1248. 2. Smith, J.R., Investigation of Factors Affecting Possible Increase in Production of Safflower Oil in Colorado, M.S. Thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 1950, p. 95. 3. Claassen, C.E., in Proceedings of the First International Safflower Conference, University of California, Davis, California, 1981, pp. 28–35. 4. Knowles, P.F., California Agriculture 11: 16 (1949). 5. Knowles, P.F., Safflower Production in California, University of California Agricultural Extension Service, 1949, pp. 1–7. 6. Knowles, P.F., Safflower: A New Crop, University of California Agricultural Extension Service, 1949, p. 1–19. 7. Sabin, A.R., Safflower: A New Oilseed Crop, USDA, Washington D.C., 1950, pp. 1–14. 8. Claassen, C.E., Safflower Production in the Western Part of the Northern Great Plains, Nebr. Agr. Expo Sta. Circ. 87, Lincoln, Neb., 23 pp., 1949.

The Early Days of the Industry

31

9. Claassen, C.E., and A. Hoffman, Crops Soils 1: 5–7 (1949). 10. Matlock, R.L., Progr. Agr. Ariz. 1: 5,12 (1950). 11. Denver Post, Denver, Colorado, November 28, 1949. 12. Lowe, W., Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, p. 49, November 29, 1949. 13. Rocca, B.T., Oil and Troubled Waters—The PVO Story, Private Publication, 1986. 14. Woodward, R.E., Industrial Survey of Safflower, Chemurgy Project, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb., pp. 31–34, 1949. 15. Baker, M.L., C.N. Baker, C. Ervin, L.C. Harris, and M.A. Alexander, Feeding Safflower Meal-Bulletin 402, Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, Lincoln, Nebraska, 11 pp., 1951. 16. Hilston, N.W., C.B. Roubicek, and L. Paules, Comparative Value of Soybean Oil Meal and Safflower Meal and Urea for Fattening Steers—Circular No. 2, Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station, 6 pp., 1951. 17. Safflower Comes to California, Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation, San Francisco, California, 1951, p. 6 18. Sabin, A.R., The Agricultural Situation 34; 10–11, USDA, Washington, January 1950. 19. Christensen, L.M., Amer. Paint J. 34: 54 (1950). 20. Hammond, D., Safflower Oil Summary, March 20, 1950. 21. “Safflower Still May Become New Crop in Arizona,” Arizona Farmer, October 29, 1949. 22. “Valley Farmers Test Safflower Crop Prospects,” Arizona Republic, p. 4, July 20, 1950; 23. “Dope on Safflower,” Arizona Farmer, September 2, 1950. 24. Smith, J.R., in Edible Fats and Oils Processing, edited by D.R. Erickson, The American Oil Chemists’ Society, Champaign, Illinois, 1989, pp. 324–330. 25. Soltoft, P., and F.G. Dollear, J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 28: 335 (1951). 26. Thurmond, C.D., A.R. Hempel, and P.E. Marling, J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 28: 354 (1951). 27. DaValle, A.J., and W.F. Rhoades, J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 28: 466 (1951). 28. Gordon, J.A., P.T. Hamlin, and R.J. Cartmell, Safflower Alkyds—Preliminary Investigation, presented at the 24th American Oil Chemists’ Society Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Sept. 27, 1950. 29. Silverman, M., San Francisco Chronicle, p. 16, Sept. 28, 1950.

Chapter 3

Characteristics of Safflower General Characteristics of the Safflower Plant Safflower, Carthamus tinctorius, L. is a winter annual that belongs to the family, Compositae, a diverse group of flowering plants that grow in many parts of the world. Sunflower, Helianthus annuus, and niger, Guizotia abyssinica, are two other oil-bearing members of the family. Except for its flower color, safflower resembles a thistle, and the commercial genus, C. tinctorius, is not a weed since it exists only as a cultivated crop. When farmed in the United States, safflower is an annual that grows 1.5–6 feet tall. If planted when soil temperatures are barely above the 40°F required for germination, safflower seedlings can take up to 3 weeks to emerge. If planted when temperatures are above 60°F, seedlings emerge in 3–4 days (Figure 3.1). After emergence, safflower grows slowly for a period, forming many leaves in a rosette form (Figure 3.2). If safflower is planted in late fall or early winter it can remain in this form for 2–3 months, while plants that emerge in late spring will stay in this form only 4 weeks or less. During this period competing plants can gain a foothold, and later in the season will tower over the safflower.

Figure 3.1. Safflower seedlings. 32

Characteristics of Safflower

33

Figure 3.2. A field of safflower in the rosette stage. During the rosette stage, the plant is sending down a deep tap root. If safflower is planted with wide spacing or at a low seeding rate, the plant will branch profusely (Figure 3.3) whereas, if it is sown at a heavy seeding rate or on narrow spacings, the branching is much more upright and compact (Figure 3.4). As the temperature and length of day increase, a stem begins to grow. Stems can elongate as much as 1 inch/day until the plant reaches its maximum height. Branches generally begin to form when the plant is 8–15 inches tall (Figure 3.5). The stem and branches will form one to five flower buds at their ends. Buds open into blossoms 4–5 weeks after they first form (Figure 3.6). Flowering lasts from 10 days to 3 weeks (Figure 3.7) and maturity is usually reached 45 days after first flowering (Figure 3.8).

Botanical Characteristics Root Safflower has a strong, whitish taproot from which numerous laterals radiate horizontally in the upper layers of a field. The taproot normally penetrates to a depth of 6 feet but has been measured to depths of 14 feet (1,2). It will deplete soil moisture down to a depth of 2–4 meters (3). The length of the taproot and the configuration of the laterals will depend on the type of soil and amount and depth of available moisture. The deep rooting character helps safflower do well in areas of relatively low rainfall. The chiseling effect of this deep rooting system is considered to be an important reason for enhanced cotton yields following safflower (4).

34

Safflower

Figure 3.3. The bush form of safflower.

Characteristics of Safflower

Figure 3.4. The upright form of safflower.

35

36

Safflower

Figure 3.5. A field of safflower in a rapid growth stage.

Figure 3.6. Safflower buds.

Characteristics of Safflower

Figure 3.7. Safflower in full flower.

Figure 3.8. Mature safflower being harvested.

37

38

Safflower

Of course, safflower needs time for its deep-rooting system to develop, and this activity appears to be particularly associated with the length of time the crop is in its rosette stage. If safflower is planted late in a growing season, the warmer temperatures tend to force the plant out of the rosette stage quickly: taproot length is limited, and the plant may suffer stress later in its seed-forming cycle if temperatures are above normal. When grown as a rainfall-supported crop on medium loam soils, the taproot will extend to considerable depths, searching for water and nutrients, whereas under surface irrigation the root system will tend to be shallower and feature extended laterals. Where land is subirrigated (by means of periodic spud ditches), or where the field has been preirrigated to fill its subsoil profile with water, the taproot will extend to a greater depth when compared to a surface-irrigated field. Phytophthora root rot is the principal root disease of safflower. It attacks the taproot in fields where water is allowed to stand during or after irrigation because of improper land slope or on a soil type that exhibits poor percolation or drainage. Stem and Branches The safflower stem is stiff and cylindrical, thick at its base and becomes thinner as branching progresses, relatively smooth and hairless, white to light gray or green in color, and marked with very fine longitudinal grooves (5). The circumference of the plant stem at its base varies from 3 to 12 cm (6) and is correlated with yield (7). The stem becomes brittle with age, and after harvest the center matter quickly dries into a powdery mass that eventually wastes away, leaving the stem hollow and easy to work into the soil (Figure 3.9). Temple and Knowles found the recessive gene br causes the brittle stem trait (8), wherein stems break readily and cleanly. A thin-hulled mutant found by Rubis (9,10) had a weak stem characteristic because of a lack of secondary wall thickening in sclerenchyma cells. The stem begins to elongate from the rosette as temperatures rise and begins to branch after it reaches a height of 8–15 inches. The central stem branches to form secondary stems and these branch into tertiary stems. Each branch terminates in a floral capitula (head) and the flower at the end of the primary stem is the first to bloom. The type and position of branching are a result of both the plant’s environment and inheritance. Safflower planted with wide spacing tends to form plants that are bushy and have a multitude of branches and heads at various levels, whereas narrow spacings result in a reduction in branching, generally thinner stems, and with most heads near the top of the plant (Figure 3.10). Branching can occur very close to the ground in some varieties. This manner of growth can also happen if the original stem is damaged by frost, cutworms, or hail (Figure 3.11). Safflower cultivars are classified as “appressed,” if they have a stem-tobranch angle in the range of 10–20°, “intermediate” with an angle of 20–40°, “spreading,” if over 40°, and “decumbent,” if the branches droop more than 90° (5,11). Leon and Knowles found that appressed branching was due to the recessive gene ap. (12), whereas Knowles and Fernandez-Martinez found that a different recessive gene (13), dec, controls decumbent branching.

Characteristics of Safflower

39

Knowles states that the ideal branching habit for different agricultural situations has not been worked out (3) but I believe, based on empirical observations, that most varieties producing a second layer of branches and heads (in effect, fourth order branches), such as Saffola 317, produce superior yields given adequate levels of moisture. Several studies have shown that the number of heads influences the yield (14–16), but Khider found a negative correlation in 1974 (17). In India, removal of the central bud just before flowering occurs induces increased branching, number of heads per plant, and total seed yield (18). This is advantageous, since the Indians commonly grow safflower as a single row border plant around a field making the yield per plant quite important. There are numerous reports listing height of various varieties of safflower. For example, 2,626 accessions in the world collection were analyzed for height and 29 other factors (11). The results are shown in Table 3.1. There is no question that plant height differs according to genotype (19), but environment can cause enough variation to make a single year’s measurements suspect. Some varieties, such as the Mexico Dwarf, may be short no matter what the environment and some may be photo and thermo insensitive (Figure 3.12 [11]). But most types are temperature sensitive and are driven by differences in available moisture and nutrients, salinity, date of planting, and plant density. Knowles showed the following in a test planted on various dates at Davis, California (20): Date Sown

Height at Maturity (inches)

Nov. 17, 1949 Dec. 14, 1949 Feb. 2, 1950 Mar. 16, 1950

59 55 50 41

Figure 3.9. Safflower stalks.

40

Safflower

Figure 3.10. Effect on plant structure of varying plant populations. Source: Weiss (5).

Characteristics of Safflower

41

However, Abel (21) has shown that yield is not correlated to plant height. This has been proven in practice many times; safflower that is 24 inches tall can yield just as well as safflower that is 40–50 inches tall if other conditions, particularly moisture, are satisfactory. Zhou and Zhang have reported on the composition of after-harvest safflower stems for feeding purposes: fat (3%), crude protein (15%), crude cellulose (30%), ash (10%), with total digestible nutrients (TDN) of less than 65% (22). I believe that the TDN reported was overstated, since the figure of 65% seems too high when compared to values found for safflower meal or seed. Leaves Safflower leaves are arranged in a special manner on the stems, often at uneven intervals and set opposite each other. The leaves are divided longitudinally by a noticeable

Figure 3.11. Indian-fan type of branching.

TABLE 3.1 Plant Height in the World Collection of Safflower Germplasm

Exotic average Europe Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czechoslovakia Denmark United Kingdom France Germany Greece Hungary Italy Netherlands Poland Portugal Azores Island Romania Spain Switzerland CIS Oceania Australia North America United States Mexico Canada

1,521 138 3 1 1 3 2 1 2 8 11 1 6 5 3 5 31 1 4 17 1 32 17 17 31 25 3 3

Source: Li, Zhou, and Rao (11).

Height Mean (cm) 81 79 87 88 103 58 100 98 94 73 71 55 82 52 67 73 75 98 93 69 71 82 85 85 79 85 78 73

Range 13–251 38–118 75–106

49–63 90–109 76–112 47–108 52–93 65–117 42–60 60–74 66–81 50–99 80–117 44–97 38–118 35–117 35–117 42–113 42–109 62–97 47–113

Origin South America Argentina Africa Algeria Egypt Ethiopia Former South Africa Kenya Libya Morocco Asia Japan Afghanistan Bangladesh India Iran Iraq Kuwait Libya Israel Jordan Korea Pakistan Philippines Syria Thailand Turkey China

Number of Acc. 2 2 113 2 66 16 3 9 9 8 1,397 7 34 12 707 196 4 1 1 26 11 1 89 1 11 2 116 178

Height Mean (cm) 94 94 79 107 82 83 79 64 69 72 81 79 98 83 69 98 90 105 110 80 83 61 65 71 79 91 85 80

Range 78–110 78–110 40–138 97–117 40–138 62–124 74–82 40–75 43–96 47–96 13–251 64–95 50–132 66–102 13–160 31–251 70–105

30–114 65–118 39–126 60–95 85–96 41–125 29–153

Safflower

Number of Acc.

42

Origin

Characteristics of Safflower

43

midrib that is more pronounced next to the stem. There are lightly defined lateral veins leading off the midrib. The leaves are between 2.5 to 5 cm wide and from 10 to 15 cm long with acuminate (pointed) tips. The midrib projects slightly from the tip. Most leaves have serrated edges and are lanceolate in shape but can be ovate to obovate. Figure 3.13 illustrates varying shapes of varieties from different parts of the world. Leaves become shorter and stiffer on the upper reaches of the plant until reaching the terminal bud branches where the leaves become still shorter, ovate to obovate shapes, getting closer and closer together until they crowd on each other in a involucral whorl around the flower head. The Chinese have done studies on the shape of the cotyledons and developed a cotyledon index based on the ratio of length to width. Accessions with a smaller ratio exhibit more resistance to cooler weather (11). The lower leaves on most safflower types are spineless; on the upper leaves the degree of spininess varies from spineless to horrible. Spininess is controlled by multiple genes. The number of spines per leaf varies from zero to 24 and length can be from 1 to 6 mm (23,24). Claassen developed a “spine index” for rating the degree of spininess of a variety. It involves multiplying the number of spines on the outer involucral bract by the length in millimeters of either the longer spines or an estimated average (25). Spineless types naturally are preferred by those harvesting the crop by hand. In countries like India, most safflower is spiny, since much of the crop is grown by small farmers who plant rows of safflower on the borders of their fields to ward off wandering livestock or children (5). Li Dajue et al. classify all 2,648 safflower accessions in the world collections by rating

Figure 3.12. Hail damage that produced a secondary stem.

44

Safflower

1. Mature leaf margins: entire (smooth), serrate, slightly serrated, deeply serrated; 2. Shapes: ovate, obovate, lanceolate, ovate-oblong, oblong; and 3. Spines: none, few, intermediate, many. They found that a majority were inverted lanceolate, with serrated leaf edges and dentate spines. Most spiny types exhibited anceolate leaves and serrated margins (11). A study by Stern and Beech in Australia (26) illustrates the effect of plant density on the number of leaves per plant. As expected, the plants from high plant densities had fewer branches and exhibited fewer leaves per plant (Figure 3.14). Leaf removal has been studied in order to observe its effect on yield and oil content. Removal of all leaves at all stages of maturity reduced yield by only 25% (27). This demonstrates why attacks of rust or alternaria on the lower leaves of safflower during the later stages of growth have little effect on yield, and why grasshopper damage generally does not reduce the yield significantly. In India and Burma, the tender shoots and leaves of young safflower plants are used as herbs or salad ingredients and contain 6% fat, 28% protein, 45% soluble carbohydrates, 9% fiber and 12% ash (all dry weight basis [28]). An analysis of Indian safflower leaves is displayed in Table 3.2. Inflorescence As is typical of all Compositae, when safflower bursts into bloom, the flowers or heads are numerous individual florets gathered closely together on a circular button. The button, or receptacle, is enclosed within a number of layers of involucral bracts that are wrapped around each other tightly and form good protection for the developing

Figure 3.13. Primary Leaves (3rd to 5th leaf) of different types of C. tinctorius showing regional variations: 1, India; 2, Turkestan; 3, Spain; 4, India; 5, Tashkent. Source: Weiss (5).

Characteristics of Safflower

45

Figure 3.14. Effect of plant density on the number of leaves per plant. Source: Stern, and Beech (26). “flower”. Each floret has its own set of bracts in the form of small hairs. The number of florets varies from 20 to 180, depending on the genotype involved and also any environmental effects (particularly plant population [5,30]). Many papers on safflower have included a drawing from Hanelt that provides a clear, though slightly stylized depiction of the parts of the safflower head (Figure 3.15 [31]). TABLE 3.2

Composition of Young Safflower Leaves from India

Component

Concentrationa

Moisture Protein Fat (Ether-Extractable) Mineral matter Carbohydrates Ca P Fe, mg Calorific value/100 gm Carotene (I.U. Vitamin A/100 gm) Thiamin, mg Riboflavin, mg Accorbic Acid, mg Source: a Aykroyd (29), b Gopelan (72).

89.9% 3.3% 0.7% 1.0% 5.1% 0.18% 0.06% 7.6 40.0 5,500

Concentrationb 91.1% 2.5% 0.7% 1.3% 4.5% 0.185% 0.035% 5.7 33 3.54 0.04 0.10 15

46

Safflower

Weiss has provided a very precise technical description of the florets: “The flowers are regular, with five petals united to form a tube usually long and narrow, but divided at the tip into five lobes of varying size. The epidermal cells of the corolla tube, viewed vertically, are roughly rectangular-oblong in shape, with straight walls. Those of the corolla lobes are elongated with sinuous walls, except at the apex, where the cells are small and papillose. On the outer epidermis, near the apex of the corolla lobes, occur scattered papillae, and in the apex cells are prismatic crystals of calcium oxalate. The mesophyll of the corolla tube is transversed by five vascular bundles and five oil canals, and at the origin of the lobes these both branch and transverse the marginal mesophyll of the lobes. The five stamens lie inside the corolla and the anthers are fused into a tube, although the filaments are normally separate. Scattered multicellular, multiseriate hairs occur near the junction of filament and anther. A single vascular bundle containing delicate spiral vessels transverses the filament. Near the apex of the anther, the cells bordering the dehiscent tissue and extending to the margins and anther apex are thick-walled and porous, while those in the region of dehiscence are rectangular-oblong and thin-walled. At maturity the

Figure 3.15. Reproductive structures of safflower. (a) Head showing spiny outer bracts and several flowers. (b) Disk, or tubular flower, showing ovary at base, tubular corolla terminating in five lobes, an anther with short filaments attached to the top of the corolla tube, and the stigma with attached pollen above the anther tube. (c) Anther tube slit on one side and opened up to show the five attached anthers. (d) Stigma with attached pollen and upper portion of the style. (e) Achene (seed). Source: Hanelt (31).

Characteristics of Safflower

47

staminal tube rises above the spreading segments of the corolla as a bright-yellow cylindrical structure. The anthers have introrse dehiscence. The stigmatic surface bristles with spinose papillae, which are up to 180 microns in length at the bulbous base of the stigma, becoming progressively shorter towards the apex” (5).

Claassen has described the process of flower opening in detail: “Before flowering the stigma is enclosed by the five fused anthers, which are attached by very short filaments to the tip of the corolla tube. Usually all florets that open during a given day have begun to elongate by sunrise. Anther dehiscence, which normally occurs soon after sunrise, takes place at the tip of the anther column as the stigma emerges from within the anther tube. The combined elongation of the style through the corolla tube pushes the brush-like stigma through the anther tube until all the stigmatic surface of the pistil has grown well beyond the tip of the anthers. By the time this process of elongation is completed, the stigma is usually well covered with the floret’s own pollen” (32).

The corolla tube is 2–3 cm long, and the five petal lobes are 6.5–8 mm long. The five fused anthers form a tube that is 4 mm long, and the stigma projects beyond the top of this tube by 5–6 mm. Cultivated safflower pollen is yellow, 52–67 µm in diameter and covered with sharp spines when observed through a microscope (33.34). Figure 3.16 shows a typical safflower head before flowering. One can see how the bracts fully cover and surround the developing “flower.” Figure 3.17 depicts a head after it has opened and the individual florets have emerged, and Figure 3.18 is a photo taken from above of a fully opened head after flowering has been completed. The lower bracts on a head usually mimic the characteristics of the upper leaves and the inner bracts tend to be longer. In the monograph by Li Dajue et al. on safflower germplasm, outer involucral bracts are rated for size (length and width in cm), shape (ovate, lanceolate, or long lanceolate), location on the head (basal, middle, and apical; basal and middle only; basal only; and none) and altitude (closed or open [11]). A closed type of head helps to resist rain-associated problems prior to and during flowering, and resists premature shattering at harvest time, whereas a more open head handles later rainfall problems better and promotes easier combining. Spines on the bracts are an important factor in breeding for handpicking and may play a part in insect or bird resistance (11). They are classified as to number (none, few, intermediate, and many), location (tips only, tips and few on apices, tips and few on bases, tips and all over leaf margins, leaf margins), and length (none, short, intermediate, or long). At the base of each flower (floret) is an inferior ovary that grows into a singleseeded fruit, named an achene, that is normally called a seed. Interspersed among the flowers, and subsequently the seeds, are bristles or hairs (31). Sometimes these bristles persist as a tuft (pappus) on the top of the seeds in the center of the head, although this is not usual in commercial varieties. But the hairs (usually white) that surround the seeds can be a problem when using a combine to harvest safflower, as they tend to fly through the air and will sometimes clog radiators (particularly the ones mounted under a machine) or air filters, and start fires. The heads at the ends of main branches, bloom first, followed by the heads on the secondary branches. Within a given head, blooming starts on the periphery and moves toward the center in a centripetal or whorling manner, two rows at a time.

48

Safflower

This goes on for 3–7 days, depending on the variety and environmental factors. It may take 10–40 days for all heads on a plant to bloom. Head size, number of heads per plant, and number of seeds per head are affected by varietal difference and environmental factors. There can be 3–50 flower heads (capitulum) per plant, and head size is 1.25–4 cm in diameter. No matter how harsh the environment safflower will try to make at least three heads, and the yield will be reduced at that point by the production of fewer seeds per head (5). Plants of this sort are often seen in the U.S. Northern Great Plains in years of drought. The collection of the florets and/or the heads for use in medicinals or as a source of dye or food coloring is one of the oldest uses of safflower. Florets are classified by color (white, light yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, red-orange, red, purple, or other) with yellow-orange being the most common color. The color of the florets after flowering may vary from the color during flowering and is discussed in Appendix B. Claassen found that inheritance of flower color is due to four independently inherited pairs of genes (25).

Figure 3.16. Typical safflower buds before flowering.

Characteristics of Safflower

49

Figure 3.17. Safflower after the head has opened and the individual florets have emerged.

Figure 3.18. Overhead view of a safflower head in flower.

50

Safflower

Safflower florets contain two color matters. In China and Sri Lanka, safflower florets for dye making are obtained by hand picking in early morning hours from heads that have not reached full flower. The picked florets are transferred to trays and placed in barns where they can be dried in the absence of moisture and direct sunlight. In Sri Lanka, safflower yields 70–100 kg of florets/hectare (5); in China the yield is 100–150 kg/hectare (personal conversation with Professor Wang Zhaomu, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Urumqi, June 15, 1993). Dried (red) flowers in Xinjiang, China, have the following composition (22): Flower Component Safflower yellow (includes yellow and 5% red mediums) Safflower red (carthamin) Pollen Lipids (includes 2% volatile oils) Cellulose Pectin protein, saccharides, etc.

Percent 30 2 5 10 40 10

Red florets are the source of two coloring materials, a water-soluble yellow and bright red dye. Yellow florets contain little or no red pigment. The red dye is carthamin, the component that was highly prized in ancient times. In order to extract the red coloring matter, the yellow dye must first be removed. The yellow component (C16H20O11) has a molecular weight of 558.48. The red component, carthamin, (C43H42O22) has a molecular weight of 910.81 and a chemical structure as shown:

Various reports differ as to its molecular weight, structure, and formula (35–40); we are assuming Obara and Onodera’s most recent work (38) and Merck (40) are correct. The yellow pigment is extracted from dried, ground florets that have been mixed with 13–15 parts of water, stirred for 15 min at 20°C, filtered, centrifuged with an amount of methylglycol equal to the amount of safflower in the clarified liquid, dehydrated under vacuum at 35°C with acetone (5–6 times the amount of remaining methyl glycol solution), allowed to rest 30 min, decanted to recover the sediment, rinsed with acetone 2–3 times, and quickly vacuum dried. A bright yellow powder results with a yield of about 28% (Tables 3.3 and 3.4 [35]). Chapter 1 discusses uses of safflower yellow pigment. Carthamin is present in the flowers at 0.3–0.6% (5). It is present in the residue from which yellow pigment has been extracted at 0.4–1.4% (35). It is extracted from the residue by soaking in a sodium carbonate solution at 20–25°C for 1 hour, filtering, centrifuging, adding hydrochloric acid to the clear liquid, passing through a polyamide absorption tower, washing with sodium carbonate again, desalinizing, and vacuum drying quickly. The end result is a dark red granular powder with a

Characteristics of Safflower

51

TABLE 3.3 Physical and Chemical Properties of Safflower Yellow Pigment Character

Normal

Maximum

Taste/smell Color value Solubility

Nil >4000 Water or Methyl Glycol; not in oil 400 nm 5% 10.3%

Nil 8000

Wavelength absorbed Shrink during drying Ash

10%

Source: Zhou and Zhang (22); Wu, Fu, and Zhang (35).

green luster. This can be refined with dimethyl amide and glycol to produce a brighter red material (Tables 3.5 and 3.6 [35,36]). Uses for carthamin, particularly in dyeing silk and cotton, are discussed in Chapter 1. Other dye components in the florets are isocarthamin (C21H22O112H2O) which ultimately converts into carthamin. If carthamin is treated with dilute hydrochloric acid, it converts into a yellow isomer, isocarmine. Carthamadin and isocarthamidin (C15H12O6), two flavanones with melting points of 218°C and 238°C, can be produced from isocarmine (37,39). TABLE 3.4 Trace Elements in Safflower Yellow Pigment Element Ba La Sr Zn Fe As Pb Cu B

µg/g 0.0231 0.0292 0.0863 0.6890 10.850 0.0187 0.2251 0.1026 nd

Element

µg/g

Be Mn Ti Zr Mg Mo Cd Ni

Element

nd 0.0838 0.00097 0.00055 14.00 0.0071 0.0098 nd

Cr Nb U Al Ca Sn Se Hg

µg/g 0.03719 nd nd 2.879 15.22 0.3224 0.1717 nd

Abbreviation: nd = not determined. Source: Wu, Fu, and Zhang (35).

TABLE 3.5 Physical and Chemical Properties of Safflower Red Pigment Character

Normal

Maximum

Taste/smell Color value Solubility

Nil 2647 Ethyl/methyl glycol; not soluble in water

Nil

Wavelength absorbed Shrinkage during drying Ash Source: Wu, Fu, and Zhang (35).

3% 5%

520 nm 10% 15%

52

Safflower

Pollen Safllower pollen is easily gathered and contains the following main components: Component Water Protein Fat Reducing sugar Cane sugar Polysaccharose Total sugar Macro/micro elements

Percent 1.87 21.06 0.064 12.33 8.04 11.05 33.0 13.9

Source: Zhou and Zhang (22).

The principal elements contained are Element Zn Mn Co Cu Fe

Content (µg/g) 22.69 199.5 3.855 17.19 1000

Source: Zhou and Zhang (22).

Seed The fruit of safflower is an achene, which we call a safflower seed. The modern types of safflower seed are normally free of pappus, although it sometimes occurs on some seeds in the center of a head. Claassen reported that one gene and some modifiers control the attached pappus phenomenon (25). Safflower seeds consist of a tough, fibrous hull that protects a kernel made up of two cotyledons and an embryo. The hull makes up 18–59% of the seed weight (41). The color of safflower seeds is generally creamy to white, but in the last 30 years a number of color variations have occurred as researchers have striven for higher oil contents by modifying the thick hull. Normal-hull seed, thin-hull, and gray-, purple-, and brown-striped hull seeds have combined into a variety of hues. TABLE 3.6 Trace Elements in Safflower Red Pigment Element Ba Mn Mo Ti Cu

µg/g

Element

µg/g

Element

µg/g

0.0143 0.0957 0.0154 0.0053 0.0115

La Sr Cd Sn

0.0262 0.0715 0.0084 0.3186

As Zn Cr Sc

0.0181 1.324 0.0361 0.1096

Source: Wu, Fu, and Zhang (35).

Characteristics of Safflower

53

Figure 3.19. Northern Plains Safflower under stress. A normal safflower hull is made up of a number of layers of tissue: the epidermis, hypodermis, outer sclerenchyma, phytomelanin layer, inner sclerenchyma, outer epidermis of the seed coat, the parenchymous layer of the seed coat, inner epidermis of the seed coat, and the endosperm (5,42). The epidermis, hypodermis, parenchymous, and endosperm layers are all very thin. The sclerenchymae are tough, highly lignified layers that produce the characteristic white color. Dividing these layers is a thin layer of melanin, dark brown in color. The two epidermal layers of the seed coat are also brown. Normal-hull varieties, like N-852 or Gila, have relatively thick sclerenchyma layers that completely hide the melanin layer and display the bright white color preferred by birdseed buyers. Rubis found and reported on a mutant that produced a pigmentless hull by eliminating the melanin layer (43) and later showed that this was controlled by the recessive allele @ul:th (44). Most safflower seeds seen in the West today are of similar size, shape, and color because the objectives of higher oil content, disease resistance, and higher yields have influenced a number of traits. However, safflower seeds in the world collection are quite diverse. In 2,549 accessions, seed weight varies from 105 gm/1,000 seeds for an accession from Portugal to a low of 14 gm/1,000 seeds for a line from Egypt (11). There is a strong correlation between bushel weight and oil content. The refererence also classifies seed as oval, conical, or crescent shaped. Seed color will vary from the normal white to grayish in some naturally occurring types. The more important color variations have occurred when the thin-hulled character is introduced into breeding programs and/or is combined with other mutations. In the thin-hulled seed, the outer sclerenchyma cells are less lignified than normalhulled seed, which permits the melanin layer to show through and, depending on the degree of lignification present, gives the visible hull a grayish to brownish cast (45). In the gray-striped mutation, the lignification varies in thickness producing a striped effect, while in the purple-striped mutant the melanin layer itself is striped, accentu-

54

Safflower

Figure 3.20 Safflower seeds of several types. ating what shows through the sclerenchyma (5). The brown-striped type has a striped melanin layer, and the lignification in its very thin sclerenchyma is confined only to the areas above and below the stripes in the melanin. For some reason, the brown-striped types exhibit a musty odor and have a low hull percentage, and therefore have a high oil content (44). Often there is a fair amount of variation within a variety of the high oil content types with one seed being white, while the next one is thinner and brown in color. In the last 40 years, individual seed size of the commonly used varieties has ranged between the size of a plump barley kernel and a small sunflower seed (Figure 3.20). Hull percentage relative to the kernel varies widely and is directly related (negatively correlated) to the oil and protein contents of the seed (46). Hull percentages in the World Collection vary between a high of 87.5% and a low of 25% (11), whereas Weiss reported that most normal-hulled seeds have hull percentages ranging between 33–45% (5). Table 3.7 illustrates the composition of the seed, kernel, and hull fractions of safflower having a modern oil content level (47) and Table 3.8 portrays the compositions for seeds of various hull types (48). Present-day safflower varieties grown in various parts of the world are producing seed having values shown in Table 3.9. Robin Saunders of the USDA examined TABLE 3.7 Major Component Percentages in Safflower Seed, Kernel, and Hull Sample Whole seed Kernel Hull Source: Betschart (47).

N

Protein (N x 5.3)

Fat

Fiber

Ash

2.63 3.58 1.08

13.94 18.97 5.72

44.23 66.15 13.03

21.94 2.74 49.38

2.68 3.13 1.96

Characteristics of Safflower

TABLE 3.8

55

Analyses of Safflower Seed from the United Statesa

Whole safflower seed Gila U-5 US-10 Frio Thick-hull hybrid Brown-striped Pigmentless brown-striped Thin-hull Safflower hull Gila U-5 US-10 Frio Thick-hull hybrid Brown-striped Pigmentless brown-striped Thin-hull Safflower kernel Gila U-5 US-10 Frio Thick-hull hybrid Brown-striped Pigmentless brown-striped Thin-hull

Oil

Protein

Fiber

Ash

NFE

38.1 38.5 36.8 40.1 37.8 47.7 42.8 47.2

16.7 17.2 19.4 15.4 17.3 20.3 22.5 21.1

22.3 21.1 22.3 20.8 21.5 11.7 13.6 11.2

2.6 2.3 2.5 2.3 0.7 3.4 3.5 3.3

20.3 20.9 19.0 21.4 22.7 16.9 17.6 17.3

3.2 2.2 1.4 2.7 2.2 5.7 5.6 5.1

4.3 5.0 3.6 4.1 4.1 8.4 8.6 10.0

57.1 58.4 60.0 60.4 63.9 46.9 46.2 45.3

2.0 1.4 1.6 2.2 0.9 4.9 5.1 5.1

33.4 33.0 33.2 30.6 28.9 34.1 34.5 34.5

60.9 61.8 59.0 64.0 58.1 52.7 55.9 62.6

24.9 25.4 29.4 23.0 24.7 24.8 27.4 25.5

1.5 1.5 1.5 1.0 2.8 0.9 2.7 0.9

3.1 2.9 3.2 2.6 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.0

9.5 8.4 6.9 9.4 11.3 8.5 10.9 8.0

aAll analyses are percentages on a moisture-free basis. Source: Guggolz et al., (48).

the sugars in safflower hulls and kernels, and found the values shown in Table 3.10. Table 3.11 illustrates Deosthale’s study comparing trace elements in various Indian oilseeds, including safflower. Safflower seed used for bird feeding generally comes from varieties having a thicker and whiter hull. High quality birdseed has bright white hulls; no cracking, sprouting, breaking, or weather staining; no attached pappus; and low admixture levels. Seeds produced in areas that have no summer rains, such as California’s Central Valley, tend to be of the highest quality. However, the production cost in California when compared with other areas, such as the Great Plains, India, Canada, or China, tends to limit the incorporation of Californian seed in bird-feeding mixtures when weather factors do not limit production or quality from less costly areas. Oil As a semidrying industrial oil, safflower oil’s absence of linolenic fatty acid combined with a high linoleic level and low color values gave it an ability to produce

56

Safflower

TABLE 3.9 Characteristics of Commercial Safflower Production Country or Region United States California Arizona N. Gr. Plainsa Utah/Idaho Canada Mexico San Jose/Quir. Normal types U.S. types Argentina India China Australia

Oil Content

Moisture Protein in Solvent- % Linoleic Acid in % Extracted Meal Total Fatty Acids

39.5–44 39–41.5 25–41 38–42 32–35

4–5 4–5 5–9 5–7 5–9

25 25 24 25 24

75–78 72–78 76–81 76–78 76–81

30–38 35–37 35–37 35–36 32 28–32 35–38

5–12 5–12 5–12 6–12 7–8 7–8 5–9

24 24 24 23–24 21–24 25–28 24

60–70 72–77 72–77 72–76 72–78 76–82 70–76

aWide range caused by loss of oil content in years of early frost. The high is based on the S-541 variety; the normal range for local varieties is 35–38%. Source: Smith (unpublished data).

nonyellowing white paints of unparalleled quality, and, as an edible oil, safflower oil exhibits the highest polyunsaturated level and P/S (polyunsaturated/saturated) levels commercially available. Its low color, lack of wax, low FFA, and unsapoinfiable levels allow it to be easily refined and deodorized. Almost all of the oil in safflower seed is found in the kernel; almost none is in the hull (Table 3.8). Safflower oil can be described as pale yellow or golden in color with a bland or slightly nutty flavor depending on the method of processing. It contains low levels of phosphatides and unsaponifiables, 0.5 and 0.3–1.34%, respectively (51). TABLE 3.10 Distribution of Sugars in Safflower Hull and Kernel Safflower Component

Sugars Present

Kernel

Uronic sugar glycosides Raffinose Sucrose Galactinl Total Uronic sugar glycisides Raffinose Sucrose Galactinol D-Glucose D-Fructose Total

Hull

Source: saunders (49).

% Distribution of Sugars 14.3 35.8 46.9 3.0

38.9 6.8 22.6 2.7 14.6 14.2

% Sugars

% Sugars on Defatted Basic (calc.)

0.43 1.08 1.42 0.09 3.02

7.74

0.37 0.06 0.21 0.025 0.14 0.13 0.94

0.79

TABLE 3.11

Mineral and Trace Element Composition of Some Oilseedsa Mustard

Groundnut

Safflower

6 6.6±0.02 872±35 1232±28 521±42 9.3±0.43 122±21 13.2±0.26 22.9±1.70 2.02±0.068 0.87±0.052

8 4.7±0.21 767±41 318±25 273±18 7.9±0.34 48±3.7 25.6±4.09 8.3±0.44 0.89±0.105 0.63±0.058

19 3.3±0.09 500±8 77±6 239±4 2.5±0.23 30±1.6 11.0±0.76 9.0±0.53 1.66±0.173 0.48±6.031

6 2.1±0.15 367±10 214±28 241±18 4.6±0.13 52±3.3 11.0±0.78 15.8±1.54 0.54±0.08 0.45±0.060

aAll values are mean±SEM for dry weight of the sample.

Characteristics of Safflower

No. of Varieties Ash (g %) P (mg/100g) Ca (mg/100g) Mg (mg/100g) Fe (mg/100g) Zn (µg/g) Mn (µg/g) Cu (µg/g) Mo (µg/g) Cr (µg/g)

Sesame

Source: Deosthale (50).

57

Characteristic

Saponification value Iodine value (Wijs) Unsaponifiable, % Peroxide value (at time of shipment) Moisture and volatile, (AOCS Method Ca 2d-25) Insoluble impurities, % (AOCS Method Ca 3–46) Moisture and impurities, % Principal fatty acids, % of TFA Palmitic Stearic Oleic Linoleic Linolenic a

Nonbreak grade, NIOP.

b

Edible grade, NIOP.

Source: NIOP (54); Smith, unpublished data.

Minimum

Maximum (Per NIOP Trading Rules)

8–10 2–3+a

11a 4a

0.5–1.0 redb 0.919–0.924 1.473–1.476 15–17 300+

15 yellow/1.5 redb

0.15–0.6 0.03–0.05b 186–194 141–147 0.3–0.6 0–1.0b 0.03–0.1 0.01–0.1 0.05–0.1a 4–6 1–2 16–12 79–79 Nil

250 2 0.05b 140

72

155 1.5 1.0b 0.8 0.3 0.1a

Safflower

Physical Color (Gardner) Color after heat bleaching, 600°F Color, refined, bleached, deodorized (AOCS Method Cc 13b-45) Specific gravity, 25/25°C Refractive index, np 25°C Titer, °C Flash point, °F Chemical Free fatty acids, % as oleic

Usual Range (California Oils)

58

TABLE 3.12 Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Safflower Oil

Characteristics of Safflower

59

TABLE 3.13 Fatty Acid Composition (%) in Safflower Oil Fatty Acid

Codex Standard

< C14