Preliminary Results of Selection for Seed Oil Content in Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.)

Abstract

Abstract The ‘Kompolti’ variety and the ‘Fibrimon 21-63’ hybrid parent were selected for high oil content and the resulting lines were named ‘Kolaj’ and ‘Fibrolaj’, respectively. Individual selection was carried out on the basis of pressed oil content. The selection gains calculated from the pressing data were checked using the extraction method. For this purpose an experiment was set up in a random block design with four replications, taking selection as the treatment. In the case of ‘Kolaj’ five years of selection resulted in a 2.96% increase on the basis of the pressed oil content and in a selection gain of 2.83% according to the data of extraction with hexane. The pressing method could not be applied in ‘Fibrolaj’ in two years due to the small seed yield, so no selection could be carried out in these years. This meant that selection was only carried out three times between 1997 and 2002. Analysis of variance indicated a higher selection gain for the extracted oil content (1.38%) than for the pressed oil content (0.87%) in ‘Fibrolaj’. At present the pressed oil content of ‘Kolaj’ is 29.8% and the extracted oil content 35.4%, while for ‘Fibrolaj’ these figures are 29.7% and 35.9%, respectively.