A field of flowering canola.
Oilseeds and legumes
CSIRO is working with legume and oilseed crops to make them healthier and more productive in the Australian environment.
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25 March 2010 | Updated 6 June 2012
Oilseeds
Australia usually produces between two to three million tonnes of oilseed crops each year.
Biofumigation/canola rotations
CSIRO has shown brassica crops, plants from the mustard family, grown in rotation with wheat:
- help control soil-borne disease
- improve root systems of wheat
- underpin increased wheat yield by up to 40 per cent
- improve reliability of response to added nitrogen
- increase efficiency of water and nutrient use.
Current research is identifying the role of the stubble-borne canola diseases blackleg and sclerotinia and other factors in canola yield decline.
In intensive vegetable cultivation brassicas, such as radish, mustard or broccoli, can also be used as ‘biofumigation’ green manures to help reduce soil-borne disease, such as Bacterial Wilt.
Field trials in the Philippines and North Queensland, Australia, are examining ways of making biofumigation practical and effective for intensive agriculture.
Grazing brassicas
CSIRO is investigating the benefits of integrating brassica forage crops into rotations with grazing wheats in the high rainfall zones. The possibility of growing dual-purpose brassicas for grazing and canola oil production is also under investigation.
CSIRO has genetically modified both cottonseed and canola to produce high-oleic oils suitable for cooking purposes, but without cholesterol-raising trans fatty acids often found in processed cooking oils.
Healthier oilseeds
Oilseeds are used to produce oils for use in foods, such as spreads and cooking oils. The properties of these oils depend on their fatty acid composition.
CSIRO has genetically modified both cottonseed and canola to produce high-oleic oils suitable for cooking purposes, but without cholesterol-raising trans fatty acids often found in processed cooking oils.
The high-oleic cottonseed line has performed normally in field testing. A high-stearate form of cottonseed oil has also been produced, which will provide a nutritionally superior hardstock for margarine production.
Long chain omega-3 fatty acids, including DHA, are nutritionally important fatty acids currently sourced only from marine organisms. CSIRO has developed a plant that produces DHA and is looking towards commercial varieties of DHA-producing oilseed crops.
Varieties of CSIRO’s edible linseed, Linola, are being improved to provide novel nutritional and industrial uses.
Oilseeds as biofactories
CSIRO has demonstrated that land plants can produce the important omega-3 fatty acid DHA.
Some of the fatty acids in oilseeds can already be used in industrial applications. There is tremendous potential to engineer oilseeds with specialty fatty acids that can replace petrochemical products in the production of plastics, adhesives and surface coatings.
CSIRO is working to change the balance of existing fatty acids and develop new ones in oilseeds to produce oils better suited to particular industrial uses.
Related information sheets
Related scientific papers
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