STORY LEAD:
Plant Explorers Seek Wild Lesquerella
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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
April 28, 1999
Marcia Wood, (510) 559-6070, mwood@asrr.arsusda.gov
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A hunt for Mexico's wild lesquerella, a mustard family plant with oils that
might be used for industrial products, will begin this spring for
Agricultural Research Service scientists and university colleagues.
A series of expeditions will take the scientists 5,000 miles through ten
Mexican states. They will comb hillsides and gullies for wild relatives of
Lesquerella fendleri, a yellow-flowered plant native to the American
Southwest.
Lesquerella seed compounds called hydroxy fatty acids may be alternatives to
those now obtained from imported castor oil to make resins, waxes,
lubricating greases, cosmetics and other products, according to ARS
lesquerella breeder David A. Dierig at Phoenix, Ariz. America imports castor
oil from India, Brazil, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Indonesia.
Natural thickeners, made from chemicals on the seed coat, might be used in
food processing. The protein-rich meal, left over after oil is removed, may
supplement cattle feed.
Breeding America's L. fendleri with wild relatives may yield offspring that
bear bigger seeds with more oil and a higher amount of hydroxy fatty acids.
This might boost lesquerella's potential as a profitable new crop for
growers in the Southwest.
Dierig, along with Andrew M. Salywon of Arizona State University, Tempe,
will join colleagues from Mexico's Antonio Narro Agricultural University,
Coahuila, on the expeditions to the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango,
Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and
Zacatecas.
Some seed will be planted at test plots in Arizona. Later, a selection of
seed harvested from the Arizona plots will be given to a plant gene bank in
the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System. The scientists are the first to
collect lesquerella from Mexico for the Germplasm System.
The lesquerella quest is funded in part by ARS' National Germplasm Resources
Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
chief research agency.
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Scientific contact: David A. Dierig, ARS Water Conservation Laboratory,
Phoenix, Ariz, phone (602) 379-4356, fax (602) 379-4355,
ddierig@uswcl.ars.ag.gov.
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