Jojoba

Straw into Gold: Sorghum takes just five acres; soybeans, one acre. They grow mustard on a quarter acre: prepared mustard nets $1,200 a year. They grow garlic on 1/6th of an acre: garlic bulbs and garlic puree nets $800 a year. And they grow horseradish on just 1/10th an acre: prepared horseradish nets $1,000 a year. Bean into packets of tempeh for heath food stores net $1,500 a year.

Simmondsia chinensis --- Jojoba --- Simmondsiaceae
Male plant with male flowers.

What is jojoba? It's a plant that can grow in many semi-arid regions of the world, requires little water and maintenance and yields a crop of seeds that have many uses. The seed-oil has been used in lubricants, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and as a replacement for sperm oil in manufacturing of inks, varnishes, waxes, detergents, resins and plastics. In this era of dwindling natural resources and increased concern for the environment, maybe jojoba's time is now. (AW)

The "oil" from the seeds is unusual in that it is not an oil but a pure liquid ester! The difference between an oil and an ester is small and yet large in terms of properties. Vegetable oils have several alcohol groups on the molecule and some have forked molecules and will eventually oxidize and become rancid. Jojoba has only one alcohol group and is a straight chain molecule; therefore it is not subject to oxidizing and in fact is an anti-oxidant and will never become rancid. However, the liquid ester does have the ability to self polymerize in the presence of sunlight, so it is best to keep it in brown glass bottles, in the dark, or in closed metal cans. Research is presently underway at Jojoba Obispo to investigate the qualities and uses of polymerized jojoba oil.

The liquid ester is chemically almost identical to spermaceti oil which is also a pure ester found in the head of the Sperm whale. Jojoba is the ideal substitute for the oil of the Sperm whale which until restrictions was used for high temperature lubrication, cosmetics and as a lubricant for automatic transmissions. Perhaps jojoba really can save the whales.

Jojoba "oil" is a natural mimic of the oil secreted by human skin so it may be used to protect and lubricate skin and hair. It is soothing, stops multitudinous skin problems and protects against premature aging and wrinkling of the skin caused by exposure to ultra violet radiation.

Soil texture is important as jojoba grows best in sandy or decomposed granite or rocky soils. Even if the fertility of the soil is marginal, jojoba is still able to produce well without the use of fertilizers. However, jojoba plants kept in containers seem to do better with some fertilization.

Irrigation systems are a must when establishing jojoba plantations whether by planting seeds or seedlings. The plants seem to do well on their own after two years of intensive watering in early winter and spring when the jojoba plant maximally utilizes water for growth. This watering period is a plus for the jojoba farmer as jojoba's water requirements will not conflict with the watering requirements for traditional crops. Under ideal conditions of soil, water and sun, the tap root will grow an inch a day; within two years the roots should reach the level of the aquifer thus enabling sufficient growth for seed production without supplemental watering.

In the wild, plants will produce a crop solely utilizing ground water and are also able to do so when in plantations assuming an underlying aquifer is available to the roots. If it is possible (and economically viable) watering should be continued every winter and spring as this will keep layers of water moving downward, thereby causing the root systems to develop at greater and greater depths each year. In this case, if the aquifer should drop because of over drafting, the plants will still have water each year for good seed production.

Seedlings can be expected to flower after three years growth.

Jojoba is usually dioecious (male and female flowers are borne on separate plants). Female flowers are small, pale green and commonly solitary or in clusters at the nodes. Male flowers are yellow, larger, and occur in clusters. Pollination occurs via wind or insect.

The fruit is a green capsule which encloses up to three seeds. When ripe (3 to 6 months after fertilization) the capsule splits and reveals the seed, which is brown, wrinkled and about the size of a small olive (300 to 1,000 seeds/lb). Seed production is generally limited until the fourth year of growth.

The plants are wind pollinated as pollen travels hundreds of feet in a breeze. There are no known insect pollinators other then accidentals. The flowers form in the winter and after pollination grow until they are mature seed in July. The seed skin will dry, shrink and split, whence the slightest breeze will send hundreds of the seeds to the soil below. Seed oil content may vary from 45% to 65%. The properties of the oil are constant regardless of geographical origin of the seed.

sorghum.html

Seed Preparation and Germination:

Jojoba can be planted by direct seeding or by transplanting seedlings to the field. In the southwestern U.S. many growers prefer direct seeding because it is less expensive, faster and requires less hand labor. Seed can be germinated in vermiculite or sand at about 80°F. Emergence occurs in 15 to 20 days, and the seedlings are ready for transplanting when they are 6 to 12 in. tall (8 to 10 weeks). Emergence from direct-seeded fields occurs in 15 to 20 days. Propagation from clones or from tissue culture is a more rapid method of varietal improvement.

Seedbed Preparation:

Jojoba plantations are established by clearing and leveling a site prior to seeding or planting seedlings, rooted cuttings or plantlets produced from tissue culture.

Seeding Date:

Jojoba can be seeded or transplanted to the field when the soil temperature reaches 70°F. Low soil temperature may delay emergence by as much as 2 to 3 months.

Method and Rate of Seeding:

Seeds are planted 1 in. deep, and emergence usually occurs within 20 days. The soil should be kept moist but not wet through emergence.

Individual seeds or seedlings are planted 12 to 18 in. apart in rows. Spacing between rows depends on the harvester to be used. With hand harvesting and cultivation, rows can be as close as 10 ft.

To obtain the proper female:male ratio (6:1), it is advisable to over-plant (7 to 9 lb/acre of seeds) and rogue out excess males later. As male plants flower, they should be thinned out to 1 male every 40 ft on the row. As female plants flower, usually in the third year, any slow-growing or unproductive plants are thinned out, leaving 1 female plant every 2 to 3 ft on the row.

Yield Potential and Performance Results:

Jojoba generally does not produce an economically useful yield until the fourth or fifth year after planting. Seed yields in natural stands of jojoba range from a few seeds to as much as 30 lb of clean, dry seed per plant. Production of seed varies greatly from plant to plant in a stand and from year to year for a particular plant.

Currently, the average yield of commercial jojoba plantations is less than 300 lb/acre. Plantations that were established with selected higher yielding clones are capable of producing up to 800 lb/acre. Crop improvement programs at the University of California-Riverside and the University of Arizona-Tucson are actively researching consistent productivity.
Alternative Field Crops The extraction of jojoba oil is performed by screw pressing or is carried out using a standard oilseed press. Once crushed the oil is filtered and may be pasteurised and bleached before storing in sealed drums until required, or sold. The oil is crushed from peanut-sized seeds that are produced from plantations of hedge-row grown shrubs.

Most jojoba oil produced in the U.S. today is sold at a high price for use in cosmetics and hair care products. As many as 300 products containing jojoba have appeared in the U.S. in recent years. As the supply of oil increases and price decreases, more uses will become economically feasible. For example, the viscosity index of jojoba oil is much higher than that of petrolium oil; therefore, it may be used as a high temperature, high pressure lubricant. The stability of jojoba oil makes it attractive to the electronic and computer industries. And since jojoba oil contains no cholesterol or triglycerides and is not broken down by normal metabolic pathways, it may become an important low-calorie oil for human consumption. The oil can be used as an antifoam agent in antibiotics production and as a treatment for skin disorders. Other proposed uses include candles, plasticizers, detergents, fire retardents, transformer oil, and for the leather industry.

Pepper field, Deming, NM. The most important vegetables raised are chili peppers and onions; others include potatoes, lettuce, and pinto beans. Corn, cotton, peanuts, grain sorghum, and wheat are the most important field crops—most grown on irrigated farms. Orchard crops are primarily pecans and apples.

Jojoba seed contains a light-gold colored liquid wax ester which is the primary storage lipid of the plant. This is unlike conventional oilseed crops, such as soybean, corn, olive, or peanut which produce oils as the primary storage lipid. Jojoba wax (called oil) makes up 50% of the seed's dry weight. The physical properties of jojoba oil are: high viscosity, high flash and fire point, high dielectric constant, high stability and low volatility. Its composition is little affected by temperatures up to 570°F (300°C). Jojoba oil contains straight- chained C₂₀ and C₂₂ fatty acids and alcohols and two unsaturated bonds, which make the oil susceptible to many different types of chemical manipulations. The extracted oil is relatively pure, non-toxic, biodegradable, and resistant to rancidity. The meal contains up to 30% protein, but toxic compounds (simmondsins) make it currently hazardous as an animal feed.

Jojoba Links

AL-AIN, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, Apr 23: A nut oil widely used in cosmetics and shampoos could one day be powering cars and trucks. Scientists have found that jojoba oil is a viable alternative to diesel fuel. In early tests, jojoba-fuelled engines performed just as well as diesels. They also produced fewer pollutants, and ran more quietly and for longer.

Jojoba is a desert shrub that can reach up to 4.5 metres high and typically lives more than 150 years, producing nuts that yield half their volume in oil. The oil is used as a non-greasy skin-smoothing ingredient in cosmetics, and as a base for shampoos and make-up. Engineers believe it has potential as a motor fuel because it releases a lot of energy when it burns, and is chemically stable at high temperatures and pressures, "New Scientist" magazine reported.

A team of scientists from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt tested the idea by attaching an array of sensors to a diesel engine. The engine was run both with regular diesel and a fuel made by adding just a dash of methanol and a catalyst to raw Jojoba oil. Jojoba fuel matched diesel for torque and power over the tested engine speeds of between 1,000 and 2,000 revolutions per minute. The fuel contains less carbon than diesel, which means lower emissions of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and soot. Jojoba also contains no sulphur, which normally shortens the lifespan of diesel engines because of the corrosive effects of sulphuric acid. It is also safer to store and transport, having a higher "flashpoint" than diesel so that it is less likely to explode. The major obstacle in the way of Jojoba fuel is growing enough Jojoba plants.

The use of Jojoba as a fuel needs huge quantities of seeds, which would require large investment, probably by the Government or private sector, said Mohamed Selim, from the United Arab Emirates University at Al-Ain, who led the research. But he said Jojoba fuel could become popular in regions where the shrub can be grown easily.

The plant has been grown for decades in the American South-West and NorthWest Mexico, and is now cultivated throughout South America and in several Middle Eastern countries. Farmers in Egypt had already started planting Jojoba shrubs specifically to use the nut oil as a fuel, "New Scientist" reported. (DPA)

With the decline in profitability of “white gold,” some agriculturalists have turned to an entirely new crop: jojoba (or, somewhat unimaginatively, “green gold”), hailed by its producers as the miracle crop of Egypt’s future.

Jojoba is a low evergreen plant indigenous to the Americas. A resilient shrub, it thrives in hot, arid climates, and requires very little in terms of water or maintenance. In the last 15 years, it was discovered that the small desert bush is ideally suited to Egypt’s climate and soil. And more importantly, the plant’s seeds and extracts yield a seemingly endless array of products and applications.

Processing jojoba seeds yields a sap that is 60 percent pure oil – chemically classified as a liquid wax – that can be used towards a variety of industrial and pharmaceutical ends. For example, jojoba oil is used to make ointments, inks, varnishes, waxes, detergents, pharmaceuticals, resins and plastics; it can be employed as an additive in motor, transmission and gear oils; and it’s a good substitute for the oil of the sperm whale – which is used in cosmetics as well as automatic-transmission lubricants.
According to one of the many websites dedicated to the myriad uses of jojoba oil, it is also “a natural mimic” of the oil secreted by human skin, so its application reportedly protects the skin and slows the ageing process. It was even recently reported that researchers at Helwan University in Cairo and the United Arab Emirates University have been testing jojoba oil as a substitute for diesel fuel, with promising results (the patent, however, appears to have already been snapped up by an American company).

Dr. Nabil S. El Mouguy is Egypt’s authority on fertilization, irrigation and oil extraction methods for jojoba. He is also the sole national supplier of jojoba seedlings. His jojoba farm, about 100 kilometers outside of Cairo, is Egypt’s pilot project for the crop.

According to El Mouguy, Egypt produces about 10 tons of jojoba oil annually – enough to satisfy the few companies that manufacture pharmaceutical products with the oil. But none of El Mouguy’s production is exported, although the world market demand for jojoba oil is about 200,000 tons (and that, El Mouguy pointed out, was “without knowledge of some of the new applications”). Total world production, meanwhile, is only about 10,000 tons.

On the international market, jojoba oil sells for $10-20 per pound, depending on the quality. Oil that is labeled and packaged can sell for much more: a bottle of 100 cubic centimeters usually retails for about $6. The main world buyers are Germany and Japan.

The cultivation of jojoba, however, is no easy matter. It takes time and investment, but can yield exponentially increasing returns. The plants don’t start producing seeds until their fourth year. Until then, they need about 50-70 liters of water in the summer and 10-30 liters in winter. By the fourth year, though, one acre will produce 250 to 350 kilograms of seed. Profits start coming by around the eighth year, as mature plants (which at this point can survive a year without being watered) will produce 800 to 1,200 kilograms of seed per acre. Thus, according to El Mouguy, the average investment in jojoba farming is about £E 30,000 per hectare (not counting the cost of water and land) and the average return is about $12,000.

While most of Egypt’s jojoba cultivation is currently is Assiut (where it is overseen by the Assiut governorate, the Ministry of Defense and private businessmen), El Mouguy explained that jojoba could be planted anywhere “from Alexandria to Aswan.” The only place it wouldn’t thrive would be the Delta, he said, because the plant requires well-drained, yellow soil, which the Delta doesn’t have.

El Mouguy maintained that jojoba is a much more profitable crop than either tobacco or cotton, yielding a much higher return per cubic meter of water. In fact, El Mouguy predicted, “there will be a boom” of jojoba cultivation in Egypt’s near future. And if all phases of production – from oil extraction to packaging – are done locally, the desert shrub could be an extremely lucrative development for Egypt’s agriculture sector. Ursula Lindsey

Profit From The CBTPA

Mesquite trees

The project attempted to demonstrate an economic value to the harvest of renewable products from mesquite trees rather than their destruction and sale as timber and firewood. This investigation resulted in the development of several products based on the flavorful and nutritious beans pods from these trees. It is important to mention that the mesquite bean pods have been, for thousands of years, an important source of food for indigenous peoples in arid lands.
The initial investigations centered on the mesquite forests of the southwest USA and northern Mexico. A product of acceptable quality was produced. Continued examination of mesquite forests elsewhere located a highly nutritious and more flavorful bean in Peru. Among the more complex tasks faced in producing mesquite meal is the drying process for the pods that is required to reduce the moisture content to avoid gumming the milling blades. Ordinarily, this has been done with intensive labor that exposes the pods on the drying racks to sunlight during the daylight hours. The pods are packed and stored during the nighttime and laid out for drying during each of 4 to 6 days.
The YONOSE Foundation designed a "low tech" inflatable forced air dryer that adequately reduces the moisture content of 1-5 tons of pods daily Grant funding was obtained and a production size dryer was built. Field testing was conducted at a site near Tucson Arizona, prior to the shipment of the dryer to Peru where it was integrated into the rural mesquite harvest operation.

Sunflower Seeds - David

You asked how we shell the sunflower seed without breaking the kernel. This is a very interesting process.
The sunflower plant grows wild in the Great Plains of our nation. It is found commonly in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska along with other nearby states. The plant requires little help from farmers. It is easily planted in the late spring and seems to support itself without any extra irrigation. In fact, the crop was spread by the wagon train pioneers of the mid 1880's as they walked the prairies and chewed on the seeds. Some dropped and the crop spread everywhere.

When the plant grows it rises to reach the sun. It can climb to over 15 feet tall and the plant supports a large head with hundreds of seeds on each head. The plant follows the sun during the day and turns from East to West. The stem of the plant is tough like fibers and supports the heavy head. The seeds mature as they have full sun in dry windy locations. As the summer ends and the nights cool, the seeds finish maturing and birds love the eat them as they prepare to fall from the heads. The race is on with Mother Nature. it takes a cold freeze to set the heads and stiffen them enough to harvest. By now the plants are drooping towards the ground and the farmer uses a combine to harvest the heavy heads....

Once the heads are stored they are allowed to dry. As they dry the seed pods open and the seeds fall from the heads. Shaking helps them drop all their seeds. Eventually the seeds are dried in moisture and when they are dried enough they are dropped from above through a jet of compressed air. The air blasts the seeds into a metal plate that shatters the seed from the hull. As they break the lighter hull passes through another air blast that deflects it to the side and the heavier seed falls to the bin below. In this way the seed and hull are separated. Because the separation is not completely accurate, the entire seed that is collected now passes through sizing belts that allow the seeds to fall through by size. The full seeds are larger and remain on the belt. The smaller seeds are dropped onto moving belts below and put into other bins.

Sunflower seeds come in both the oil seed variety and the confectioner variety. Oil seed sunflower is the predominant crop and the seeds are usually black and loaded with oil. This crop is used as an oil and the separated seeds are crushed in another process. Birds love this black sunflower seed and most pet stores sell it to feed the wild birds.

Our firm uses the Confectionery Sunflower Seed Crop and this is a lot lighter gray in color, often the hull is a striped hull, and it makes a wonderful snack. The Confectioner Sunflower Seed comes into our plant in 45,000 pound semi loads. There are 900 sacks -each weighing 50 pounds. We run these raw seeds through a Continuous Oil Roasting process at the rate of 1,000 pounds an hour. The seeds are in the 350 degree oil for about 3 minutes at the most and come out toasted with a crunchy texture.

The major user of this roasted sunflower seed is the restaurant industry. You often see it on the end of the salad bar. Roasted sunflower seeds are also popular with candy manufacturers and health food stores. Some bakeries make sunflower seed bread. We sell over 400,000 pounds or 9 semi loads of these roasted sunflower kernels each year. They are packaged in 5 pound and 25 pound boxes for our commercial customers. Some years we have processed over 1.2 million pounds or about 23 semi loads. It depends on the customer base we supply. The market has remained stable since the early 1980's and is considered a mature market.