Novel Discovery Leads to New Grant Studying Oil Production in Canola and Related Crops

By Scott Weybright

Washington State University researchers are taking a discovery that upended assumptions about how plants make oil and applying it to major crops like canola as part of a new grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Last year, the team revealed that certain plants can remodel the chemical makeup of their seed oils after the oil has already been produced. This process was identified in the plant Physaria fendleri, which is related to canola but is not grown commercially. With the new federal support, the scientists will test whether canola and other widely grown oilseed crops share the same genetic mechanism, and whether it can be harnessed to make oil production more efficient for food, fuels, and chemical feedstocks.

The research is also helping launch scientific careers. Former WSU postdoctoral researcher Prasad Parchuri, a co-author on the original paper, is now a faculty member at Kansas State University and is collaborating with WSU associate professor Phil Bates on the new grant.

“Novel science like the Physaria paper leads to career benefits for young scientists,” Bates said. “We can tell graduate students and post-docs that hard work on quality projects leads to career opportunities. And those projects can have real-world impacts for farmers and consumers as the science advances.”

Bates said about 60% of canola oil is made up of highly desirable monounsaturated fatty acids. But up to 30% of the oil’s natural fatty acids include polyunsaturated compounds that are undesirable for cooking and biofuel purposes.