Some Interesting Sources of Plant Seed Oil

There is a growing realization worldwide that biodiversity is fundamental to agricultural production and food security, as well as a valuable ingredient of environmental conservation. Flowering strips around the border of the crops serves as an important function to improve the biodiversity, besides this they play a major role in the ruminant nutrition and serve as a source of numerous beneficial compounds. It is well known that seeds store their food reserves for next generation mainly in the form of lipids; some of the seeds from these flowering strips could be an interesting source of lipids. These seed oils could play important role in food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and other industries. The extraction of seed oil from four such plant species in Belgium namely Oregano (Origanum vulgare), Yellow Bedstraw (Galium verum), Common Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) & Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) was carried out. Extraction was done by a cold extraction technique using chloroform/methanol in 2:1 ratio as solvent. Amount of oil extracted from Oregano, Yellow Bedstraw, Common Self-heal and Purple loosestrife was 22.58±0.03 %, 3.28±0.01 %, 14.84±0.12 % & 20.32±0.15 %. The fatty acid profiles of these four species were determined by gas chromatography (using methyl esters of their fatty acids); Oleic acid and Linoleic acid were found in all the four species, Gamma-linolenic acid was found in Purple loosestrife & Alpha-linolenic acid was found in Oregano and Common Self-heal plant species. Thermal behaviour of these four plant seed oils were analyzed using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), while some other physicochemical properties of the seed oils were also analyzed. These plant seed oils can be of great commercial importance.