The potential of Cynara cardunculus L. for seed oil production in a perennial cultivation system

Cynara cardunculus L. has been recognised as an energy crop for rainfed lands with Mediterranean climates. For energy purposes, it is grown as a permanent crop and the whole aerial biomass produced over the annual growth cycle is harvested every year. In this work, the potential of C. cardunculus L. as an oil crop is studied in a perennial cultivation system. The degree of variation of seed oil content and fatty acid oil composition is assessed in two experiments designed to study the effect of the factors: plant population, crop year and experiment location. The range of values of seed oil content was greater for the multilocal experiment (20.0–31.6%) than for the experiment on populations (22.0–28.8%), but the effect of the agricultural year was noticed in both experiments. There were significant differences in the 18 populations experiment and a group of 5 populations was identified as rich in seed oil (>26%). Seed presscake was analysed and as a result the use of this material as fertiliser or as animal feed was proposed. Finally, the degree of variation of fatty acid oil composition—studied for the factors population, location and year—turned out to be rather small. Cynara oil profile was characterised in terms of major fatty acids as: 10.7% palmitic, 3.7% stearic, 25.0% oleic and 59.7% linoleic.