A review: Breeding for oil quality in rapeseed and mustard

Varieties having oil with < 2% erucic acid and glucosinolates < 30 u moles/g defatted seed meal are termed as "Canola" (00) and fetch premium in the International market. Indian cultivars possess high erucic acid (About 50%) and high glucosinolates (100–280 μ moles/g defatted seed meal). Indian rapeseed- mustard breeding programme was also reoriented to accommodate quality parameters and lay emphasis to develop "Canola" varieties. (Chauhan et al., 2002) Work is in progress and efforts have been underway to improve the agronomic base of low yielding zero erucic lines and to recombine low erucic acid and low glucosinolate to develop ’ 00′ varieties. From the review of this topic it can be inferred that zero erucic, low linolenic, high oleic and high lenoleic fatty acid and double zero genotypes are available and some double zero varieties are also under cultivation in India and western countries. This indicates that there is a possibility of development of ’ 0′ and ’ 00′ cultivars in our country. There for more emphasis is required for improvement of oil and meal quality in Rapeseed- and mustard through extensive breeding work.