OIL CROPS

OIL CROPS, the plants cultivated to produce fatty oils. O.c. include plants of various families: Asteraceae (sunflower, safflower); Fabaceae (soy); Brassicaceae (mustard, rapeseed, camelina, etc.); Euphorbiaceae (castorbean); Lamiaceae (perilla), etc. Fatty oil is also obtained from germs of corn, wheat and other crops. Out of O.c. the cold‑resistant plants there are mustard, rapeseed, camelina. The heat‑loving plants are castorbean and soy, the drought‑resistant plants are sunflower and mustard. The O.c. fruit (seed) oil content (in percentage of absolute dry mass): brown mustard – 35–47; oliferous flax – 30–48; camelina – 47–59; sunflower – 29–57; perilla – 26– 50; rapeseed – 33–50; camelina – 26–46; soy – 15–25. Seeds and fruits of O.c. are the raw materials for fat‑and‑oil industry. Mainly sunflowers and rapeseeds are being cultivated in the RB. Primary sunflower growing zone is the pre‑Ural steppe zone, primary spring rapeseed growing zones are NE, W and S forest‑steppe zones. Sown area of O.c. in the Republic are more than 270 thous. ha, incl. more than 230 thous. ha of sunflower (2017).