Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a multipurpose crop that can grow in arid and semi-arid environments because of its tolerance to drought stress, salinity, lower and higher temperatures. Despite safflower’s drought tolerance characteristic, drought stress can negatively impact its growth and development. Drought stress reduces plant height and biomass, leaf chlorophyll content and area, photosynthesis rate, yield components, oil content and yield, and fatty acid composition of safflower. Increased root to shoot ratio and growth of the root are some of the drought adaption mechanisms of safflower. Recent studies have reported biochemical and molecular drought tolerance mechanisms of safflower, but they are still in initial stages. Understanding these mechanisms can help in the management and breeding of cultivars with enhanced drought tolerance. This review compiles literature on the mechanisms of drought stress tolerance in safflower and approaches are proposed that can enhance better safflower management under water stress.
The climate crisis and the Ukraine war have shown the vulnerability of various crop commodities. One of those badly affected is cooking oil, leading to a shortage in several countries. This coupled with the need for healthier cooking oil, increases proportionally with the world population and has resulted in escalated cooking oil prices. Thus, continued evaluation of alternative oil crops that can do well in marginal lands becomes a vital practice to undertake. Safflower is one of the marginalized oil crops with high-quality oil containing essential fatty acids beneficial to human health. Screening safflower genotypes for oil content is critical for its breeding and adoption in non-native areas. Therefore, this study delineates the relationship between oleosin genes and oil bodies in regulating the oil content of safflower seeds. Oleosin genes and oil bodies from the seeds of five safflower genotypes were isolated and quantified using qPCR and fluorescence microscope respectively, and evaluated against the seed oil content. The results showed an inverse relationship where smaller oil bodies were displayed by genotypes with high oil content. A high relative expression of oleosin genes was observed in genotypes with high oil content (Kenya-9819 and Gila). Of the eight Ctoleosin genes that were studied, it was observed that Ctoleosin genes (1, 4, 6, 7, and 8) were highly reliable in characterizing safflower genotypes based on the oil content. Kenya-9819 and Gila genotypes were found to have high oil potential and this was confirmed by a higher accumulation of the oleosin gene. A high correlation coefficient between oleosin, oil content, and oil body was also observed in this study. The findings suggest that selected oleosin genes and oil bodies are important traits to consider when characterizing oil seed crops for oil content.
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