Our unit was established under the Central Research Institute for Field Crops Breeding and Genetics Department in 2009. In order to meet the deficit about vegetable oil, which is an important import item in our country, development of new, efficient and high fat varieties in oil crops, determination of regional adaptations and optimization of agronomic properties to obtain maximum yield from existing varieties, collection of natural source for breeding purposes, research on alternative oil crops which can be grown mainly in non-irrigated conditions, preliminary studies and projects are carried out in order to evaluate marginal areas in oil production.
Area of Expertise and Infrastructure With the studies conducted in our unit; it is aimed to develop new varieties with existing oil plants, seeds, and alternative plants to meet the vegetable oil need of our country that will meet expectations. Thus, our country will become self-sufficient for vegetable oil. In this scope; our project is being carried out regarding Breeding Programme in Safflower and hybridization and selection studies in safflower,and selection studies in sunflower, false flax, crambe, cephalaria and wild mustard plants are ongoing. Our researchs are conducted in İkizce Research and Demonstration Farm and the trial fields located in Yenimahalle campus belonging to our ınstitute and in the field belonging to Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University. As a result of the breeding programmes carried out in our unit since 2009, 1 false flax (Arslanbey) and 1 cephalaria (Karahan) variety were registered and presented to the service of the Turkish farmers. 1 safflower variety candidate has been developed. In addition, efforts are being made in our unit to establish a comprehensive oil analysis laboratory in order to provide laboratory-supported breeding trials. In our laboratory we can analyze fatty acids by gas chromatograph, oil content analysis by Soxhlet Extractor, and by NMR spectrometer. There are 3 agricultural engineers, 1 food engineer and 4 workers in our unit.
