SAFFLOWER PRODUCTION AND RESEARCH IN TURKEY

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 Abstract

      Safflower, Carthamus tinctorius L. has been grown for centuries, primarily for its colorful petals to use as a food colouring and flavoring agent, for vegetable oil and also for preparing textile dye in the Far East, Central and North Asia, America, North Africa, Europa and Caucasia. The principle countries where safflower is grown are India, USA., Mexico, and in lesser extent Kazaghistan, Ethiophia, Argentina, China, Uzbekistan Australia, Russian Federation, Pakistan and Spain (Dajue and Mündel, 1996; Anon., 2001). However, Turkey is one of the small scale safflower producers.

      From 1995 to 2000, world production of safflower has varied from 852,592 to 1,011,762 tonnes annually, grown on 1,086,516 and 1,198,890 hectares of harvested area with a yield of 711.1-847.5 kg/ha, (Anon., 2001). India is the largest safflower producing country with 383,300-430,000 tonnes of production each year on 684,000-791,000 ha. This is almost half of the the world’s production. The USA. is the second largest producing country with a 180,000-195,070 tonnes of yield per year on 84,580 to115,340 hectares. Safflower production in Mexico is between 109,020-262,740 tonnes per year on 93,152 to166,338 ha, followed by Kazakhistan (15,700 to36,000 tonnes per year), Ethiopia (35,000 to37,000 tonnes per year), Argentina (6,000 to31,000 tonnes per year), China (20,000 to29,000 tonnes per year). Safflower is mainly grown in China for its florets rather than as an oilseed (Dajue and Müller, 1996).

      The reported highest yields are over 2,100 kg per hectare in China, and 1,900 kg per hectare in the USA.