Abstract:
Three-hundred twenty-eight oil-bearing plant species are known to
exist in Ethiopia and fifteen of them are cultivated and the rest may
have uses other than oil and may be wild or cultivated. An additional
nine-oil bearing plants which are not yet cultivated commercially have
been also catalogued (Table 1). Oilseed crops such as noug,
gomenzer, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, sesame, groundnut and
castor are currently cultivated in Ethiopia.
Factors such as climate, soil topography, pests, diseases and market
requirements determine the kind of oilseed crop to be grown in a
certain area. An oilseed crop should be treated as one of the crops
grown in a particular cropping system, not a specialty, and should be
planted in a rotational cycle. The cropping plan should also include
crops that can make best use of shared resources.
