Plant
Canola
Brassica napus
Also known as: rapeseed, oilseed rape, Brassica napus, Brassica rapa
A bright-yellow-flowered annual oilseed crop in the cabbage family, the world's second-largest source of vegetable oil after soybean. 'Canola' is the trademarked name for low-erucic-acid, low-glucosinolate cultivars developed by Canadian breeders in the 1970s; older 'rapeseed' cultivars produced industrial oil unsuitable for human food. Today Canada, China, India, and the European Union are the largest producers, with canola fields painting the prairies and northern European countrysides yellow in spring.
Scientific
The crop sold as canola is two species: Brassica napus (the more widely grown) and Brassica rapa (also called Polish canola, faster-maturing). Both are annuals in family Brassicaceae, 1–2 m tall, with bright yellow four-petaled flowers in elongating racemes and slender silique seedpods. Seeds are ~40% oil by weight.
The distinguishing feature of canola (vs. older rapeseed) is low erucic acid in the oil and low glucosinolates in the meal — both achieved through conventional breeding by Canadian scientists Baldur Stefansson and Keith Downey in the 1960s–70s. The name canola is a contraction of “Canadian oil, low acid,” trademarked in 1978. Modern canola oil is one of the lowest in saturated fat of common cooking oils.
Cultural
Brassica oilseeds have been cultivated in India and East Asia for several thousand years — sarson (Indian mustard/rapeseed) is a deeply rooted crop in north Indian agriculture and cuisine. European rapeseed cultivation expanded in the medieval period as lamp oil and industrial lubricant. The transformation of inedible industrial rapeseed into edible canola in the 1970s opened up vast new acreage on the Canadian Prairies, where canola is now one of the largest crops by planted area.
Global production
Canada, China, India, the EU (especially Germany, France, Poland), and Australia are the largest producers. Canola is also a significant biodiesel feedstock in Europe. Canola is one of the few crops where genetically modified varieties dominate in Canada and the U.S. but conventional/non-GM cultivation remains the norm in the EU and Australia.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Shares approach with: [[cabbage]] · [[broccoli]]
- Member of: [[plants]]
Sources
- Canola Council of Canada — agronomy and history
- FAO commodity statistics (rapeseed and mustard seed)
- Wikipedia — Canola, Rapeseed
A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].
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