OCR Text |
Show Raising Okra for Oil Seed May Be New Southern Crop Okra is emerging as something more than a vegetable of debatable merit, and is making a bid as a major oil crop for the south. This plant belongs to the cotton family. Its fruit is a pod, 6 to 10 inches long. Usually the pod is picked when green, before the seeds have set their oil. In dry okra pods, however, Dr. Julian C. Miller, Louisiana State university's noted plant geneticist, discovered seeds which produced abundant oil, equal in food quality and wholesomeness to cottonseed oiL and suitable also for use as a drier in paint. In addition, the okra fiber is long and tough, many have a place in making cordage. Both the fiber and the pithy material surrounding the seeds may prove a source of cellulose similar to peanut hulls. Dr. Miller promptly began breeding breed-ing new varieties of okra, to be harvested for seed, rather than to be used as vegetables, has come up with an okra which yields 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of seed per acre, with the seed having an oil content of 18 to 22 per cent. This means okra may produce 180 to 440 pounds of oil per acre, against a production of 50 to 80 pounds of oil per acre from cottonseed. |