Non-traditional oily crops from arid and semiarid regions

Abstract

Vegetable oils are widely used in the food and nonfood industries. Many oil-bearing plants are native from the arid and semiarid regions of the world. While several crops originating from such regions have been expanded through the world since ancient times, more recently there has been a parallel development of underexploited promising plant species as a source of dietary or specialty oils. Many of them contain significant quantities of oils and/or a high proportion of nutritionally, medicinally or industrially desirable fatty acids - such as oleic (almond, olive), linoleic (grapeseed, walnut), a-linolenic (chia), g-linolenic (evening primrose), erucic (cramble) and hydroxy (lesquerella) fatty acids – or wax esters (jojoba). In some cases, those crops produce oils with good profit and well established markets; otherwise, they are recently domesticated wild plants for which a new utilization is being proposed. This work reviews the scientific knowledge concerning to agronomical characteristics, oil chemistry and their uses of some selected oil-bearing plants that may be cultivated in dry regions considered marginal areas for conventional oily crops.