Development of Chia, Salvia hispanica L., as a Sustainable Oil Source for Renewable Chemical Applications

Grants and Contracts Details

Description

The CPBR proposal Objectives and Specific Aims were: 1. Evaluate field performance of our new early-flowering chia lines in Kentucky for yield potential, agronomic performance, oil content and characteristics, and optimize production practices (row spacing, fertilization, planting dates, etc.). 2. Increase seed supply of best lines for rapid ramp-up and commercialization, and to supply sufficient amount of chia oil for further experiments. 3. Study the inheritance of our new long day chia mutants by crossing with each other and with test cultivars. 4. Develop processes to convert chia oil to industrially-useful chemicals such as lubricants. The overall goal of this research is the development of chia as a sustainable oil source for renewable chemical applications. This will include conversion of unsaturated fatty acids that normally accumulate in chia oil into saturated branch-chain groups with superior industrial lubricant properties; high oxidative stability with good flow properties over a wide range of temperatures. This in turn will provide a major new market for farmers and help reduce petroleum imports. In addition this will meet a major national need with a renewable industrial resource. We have seven research and development goals of this project with the industrial sponsor, TCI: 1. Establishment of optimal field production practices 2. Breeding lines with superior yield 3. Thorough analysis of the chemical composition of seeds of our new chia lines and lines available in the marketplace 4. Mutagenesis and selection of chia lines with reduced lodging, reduced shattering, larger seed size, high oil contents and higher ?3 fatty acid levels 5. Evaluation of the oxidative stability of chia oil with various levels of processing 6. Pilot scale conversion of oil into lubricants and testing 7. Evaluation of oilseed Perilla as an additional high ?3 oilseed crop for N. America To keep some of this research going as we await the decision of funding from congress and so as to not lose knowledgeable personnel and not lose the matching and collaborative efforts with the industrial sponsor, TCI, we propose to carry forward proportions of these goals and objectives. We will only be able to do limited field performance evaluation as per CPBR and TCI objectives 1 but we will analyze the chemical composition of seeds of our new chia lines and lines available in the marketplace and evaluate the oxidative stability of chia oil from our lines compared to other major renewable oil sources (part of CPBR objective 1 and TCI objectives 3 and 5). Crosses will also be made for the inheritance studies as per CPBR objective 3. We will also do some lab scale work for the development of processes to convert chia oil to industrially-useful chemicals such as lubricants as per CPBR objective 4 and TCI objective 6.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date3/1/132/28/14

Funding

  • Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research Inc: $24,694.00

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