ABSTRACT
Development of low erucic acid cultivars was a prerequisite for the use of rapeseed oil as a vegetable oil for human consumption. Standard rapeseed cultivars contain 40 to 45% oil in their seeds. The oil has a high erucic acid content of about 45% of total fatty acids. Erucic acid was of nutritional concern, as cardiac changes were observed in rats fed on high erucic acid rapeseed oil. Fatty deposits accumulated in heart tissue and, in longer experiments, necrotic lesions developed (Beare-Rogers 1970; Kramer and Sauer 1983). An offi cial conference statement at the “International Conference on Rapeseed” in Quebec (1970) recommended “a gradual change-over” to low erucic acid cultivars, which was achieved in a few years. Today the total rapeseed production in Canada, Australia and Europe and many other countries is of the low erucic acid (<1%) type. This was achieved through the application of traditional breeding methods in combination with appropriate analytical methods of fatty acid analysis. The fi rst step was the isolation of seed from B. napus germplasm with seed oil free from erucic acid (Stefansson et al. 1961). Zero erucic acid seeds were isolated in a similar fashion from Polish B. rapa (Downey 1964). Genetic studies on the inheritance of erucic acid allowed the formulation and implementation of effi cient breeding strategies for the breeding of agronomically improved disease resistant and high oil content, low erucic acid cultivars (Downey and Harvey 1963; Downey and Craig 1964; Harvey and Downey 1964; Krzymanski and Downey 1969; Downey and Rakow 1987).
