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Crambe abyssinica
Also called Abyssinian Kale, Colewort
Crambe abyssinica is an annual oilseed crop in the cabbage family, grown mainly for its high erucic acid seed oil used in industry. It is a short-season plant that grows 1 to 2 metres tall.
Crambe abyssinica is an annual oilseed crop of the family Brassicaceae. It is mainly cultivated due to the high levels of erucic acid that are contained in its seeds. The crambe oil is used for industrial purposes and its side products can be partly used as animal feed.
Crambe has not been in cultivation for a long time. It was probably cultivated for the first time in the 1930s in the former USSR. Later the crop was tested in other regions of the USSR, in Sweden and in Poland, where crambe was grown on 25,000 ha (~62,000 acres) after the second world war. Research efforts in northern and eastern Europe were increased and the agronomical characteristics and industrial uses of crambe were intensively studied. By successive selection within C. abyssinica, conventional breeding started in the 1950s in some European countries. Hereby improved strains were introduced to Canada and the United States. Further selection and crossing of different accessions led to the release of new varieties in the 1970s. Through introgression of wild populations and mass selection two new cultivars were created in the 1980s which were promoted as high yielding sources of erucic acid. In the 1990s a breeding program was started in the Netherlands.
Crambe abyssinica is cultivated for a wide range of industrial purposes. The interest lies mainly in the high erucic acid content (55-60%) of its seed oil, and makes the crop a competitive option to other oil plants as industrial rapeseed. The composition of crambe oil gives this product several special traits, such as high smoke point, good wettability of different materials and high viscosity. In addition, its oil has a higher biodegradability than mineral oils. Therefore, erucic acid derived compounds are used as additives in the plastic industry, high temperature hydraulic fluids, waxes, base for paints and coatings, lubricants and many other products. Furthermore, the extracted seed oil is used in pharmaceutical products and cosmetics.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Crambe abyssinica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
