Analytical Chemistry Methods Used in the Research and Development of Safflower Varieties for the United States Northern Great Plains Region

 Charles Flynn and Jerald Bergman

Abstract

The Montana State University Eastern Agricultural Research Center (MSU-EARC) at Sidney, Montana has been actively involved in a safflower breeding and development program since 1973, with the North Dakota State University Williston Research Extension Center cooperating.  Dr. Jerald Bergman, the principal safflower breeder, has been selecting and crossing safflower genetic lines to improve agronomic characteristics, disease resistance, seed oil content, yielding ability, and value added characteristics of safflower oil and meal.  Dr. Bergman and Dr. Charles Flynn, research chemist, have developed and adapted a number of analytical chemistry techniques that have been critical to the advancement of this safflower research and development program. While some of these techniques were reported elsewhere by Bergman et al in 1997, and Daun and Mazur in 1983, the procedures used were detailed in this paper, so that other safflower scientists in the field have a single reference to assay seed oil contents, fatty acid compositions, tocopherols and meal phenolic glucosides.

Key words: high performance, liquid chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, gas liquid chromatography, tocopherol, phenolic glucosides