Search

Currently, the negative effects of unified and intensive agriculture are of growing concern. To mitigate them, the possibilities of using local but nowadays underused crop for food production should be more thoroughly investigated and promoted. The soybean is the major crop cultivated for vegetable oil production in Zambia, while the oil production from local oil-bearing plants is neglected. The chemical composition of oils and cakes of a three traditional oil plant used by descendants of the Lozi people for cooking were investigated. Parinari curatellifolia and Schinziophyton rautanenii oils were chiefly composed of α-eleostearic (28.58–55.96%), linoleic (9.78–40.18%), and oleic acid (15.26–24.07%), whereas Ochna serrulata contained mainly palmitic (35.62–37.31%), oleic (37.31–46.80%), and linoleic acid (10.61–18.66%); the oil yield was high (39–71%). S. rautanenii and O. serrulata oils were rich in γ-tocopherol (3236.18 μg/g, 361.11 μg/g, respectively). The O. serrulata oil also had a very distinctive aroma predominantly composed of p-cymene (52.26%), m-xylene (9.63%), γ-terpinene (9.07%), o-xylene (7.97), and limonene (7.23%). The cakes remaining after oil extraction are a good source of essential minerals, being rich in N, P, S, K, Ca, and Mg. These plants have the potential to be introduced for use in the food, technical, or pharmaceutical industries.

A set of pot experiments were conducted under saran house conditions (65% shade) at the Experimental Farm of the Hort. Res. Inst., ARC, Giza Egypt during 2013 and 2014 seasons in order to study the influence of two commercial liquid products, Vege Grow (V.G.) and Phos Root-X (P. R-X.) at the rates of 1, 2 and 4 ml/l of irrigation water for each, as well as the 3 combinations between V.G. and P. R-X. at the rates of 0.5, 1 and 2 ml/l for each on growth and chemical composition of one-year-old seedlings of Mickey Mouse plant (Ochna serrulata (Hochst.) Walp.) cultivated in 16-cm-diameter plastic pots filled with about 1.5 kg of sand + clay + peatmoss mixture (1:1:1, v/v/v). The control seedlings received no treatment. The obtained results indicated that means of all vegetative and root growth parameters improved greatly as a result of applying the various treatments used in this study. However, the dominance was for fertilization with V.G. at 2 ml/l treatment which gave the highest means in most measurements of vegetative and root growth in the two seasons. Similarly were those results of leaf content of photosynthetic pigments, total soluble sugars, N, P, K, Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn and protein, as content of these constituents increased in the leaves with various significant differences compared to control. Also,V.G. at 2 ml/l treatment recorded the utmost high content of most constituents above mentioned. Combining between V. G. and P. R-X. products did not induce any additional improvement neither in vegetative and root growth nor in chemical constituent contents, except for few cases. From the above results, it is recommended to fertilize one-year-old seedlings of Mickey Mouse shrubby plants, planted in 16-cm-diameter plastic pots with Vege Grow liquid commercial product at 2 ml/l two times/month during the growing season to get better growth and quality.