A Comparison of Important Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Linum usitatissimum Sub. Species

Masoumeh Ranjzad, Masuod Khayyami and Abdollah Hasanzadeh

Linum species is oil seed that has oil percentage with a good quality in point of view omega-3 essential fatty acids. Linum usitatissimum (crop species of Linum genus) has two sub species. The aim of this study is to introduce better sub species for agricultural purposes. Important characteristic of this species including: 1000-seed weight, seed weight/plant weight, oil content, protein content and fatty acid components were selected and measured. Weight measurements performed by balance with 0/0001 (gr) sensitivity. Oil and protein content based on dry seed was measured using the extraction by Ether and Lowry methods. Sub. sp humile had more 1000-weight, seed weight/plant weight, oil content and, sub. sp usitatissimum had more protein content. Analysis of variation revealed the existence of significant variation at 1% and 5% level of significance for oil and protein content, respectively. The amounts of the five fatty acids namely, Palmitic, Stearic, Oleic, Linolenic acid and Linoleic were detected and measured by gas chromatography. Analysis of variance revealed the existence of significant variation for all five fatty acids at 1% level of significance, too. Two studied sub species were different in measured characteristic, completely. The most amounts of investigated characteristics belonged to sub. sp humile, except protein content.