The potential of Cynara cardunculus L. for seed oil production in a perennial cultivation system

Cynara cardunculus L. has been recognised as an energy crop for rainfed lands with Mediterranean climates, For energy purposes, it is grown as a permanent crop and the whole aerial biomass produced over the annual growth cycle is harvested every year. In this work, the potential of C cardunculus L. as an oil crop is studied in a perennial cultivation system. The degree of variation of seed oil content and fatty acid oil composition is assessed in two experiments designed to study the effect of the factors: plant population, crop year and experiment location. The range of values of seed oil content was greater for the multilocal experiment (20.0-31.6%) than for the experiment on populations (22.0-28.8%), but the effect of the agricultural year was noticed in both experiments. There were significant differences in the 18 populations experiment and a group of 5 populations was identified as rich in seed oil (>26%). Seed presscake was analysed and as a result the use of this material as fertiliser or as animal feed was proposed. Finally, the degree of variation of fatty acid oil composition-studied for the factors population, location and year-turned out to be rather small. Cynara oil profile was characterised in terms of major fatty acids as: 10.7% palmitic, 3.7% stearic, 25.0% oleic and 59.7% linoleic. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.