ABSTRACT
Even though Claassen had provided a seed that made safflower commercially feasible, the companies trying to start a safflower business in the Great Plains faced difficult odds. The first, second, and third problems were the weather. Safflower needs a minimum of 120 days to mature after planting; a minimum of 10 inches of rainfall, but not more than 20 inches; and finally, soils that will hold moisture and are deep enough to allow safflower’s root structure to reach for water. Figure 2.1 displays a map, based on Climate and Man (1) that I prepared for my Master’s thesis, illustrating the limited areas of the United States to which safflower is adapted (2). The areas receiving 20-24 inches of rainfall were considered marginal, and history has shown these areas to be basically unsuccessful for safflower production. Because there are summer rains in the Plains, safflower can develop serious head and leaf rot diseases, particularly if enough rain falls at or after time of flowering.
