No abstract

Safflower meal from undecorticated commercial seed is useful feed for ruminant animals. Its low energy content is a problem in poultry and swine rations.Partially decorticated meals are valuable for ruminants and are also quite suitable in poultry rations if provision is made for extra metabolizable calories, and if other feed ingredients supply additional lysine and methionine. In a properly balanced ration safflower meal produces growth rates superior to those from optimally supplemented soybean oilmeal.The flour obtained by essentially complete removal of oil and hulls is light colored, bitter, and contains about 60% protein. Debittering yields a relatively bland, 70% protein flour which has potential as a human food.

The residue remaining after commercial extraction of oil from safflower seed has a greater potential as a source of animal feed or human diet supplement than is presently being realized. Safflower seed hull, kernel, and meal were analyzed to provide more information regarding their nutritive possibilities. Commercial and experimental normal hull varieties and experimental thin hull and striped hull varieties were hand separated into hull and kernel fractions and both fractions analyzed for protein, fat, fiber, ash, and amino acids. Samples of partially decorticated commercial meal and undecorticated meal, hulls, and defatted kernel from striped hull seeds were analyzed for protein, fat, fiber, ash, lignin, pentosans, anhydrouronic acid, total and reducing sugars, and amino acids. Cellulose was calculated by difference. A new factor for converting nitrogen to protein for summative analyses of safflower seed was calculated. These analyses indicate that about 15% of the nonfiber, nonash, nonprotein part of the defatted safflower kernel is of unknown composition.

A series of pilot plant batches of castor meal have been prepared using steam as the deactivating medium. Treatments consisted of 12 combinations of 10, 20, 40 and 80 psig steam pressure for i -,, 30 and 60 min each. A multiple regression equation derived from the above data relates the guinea pig response to the process variables. This equation is also presented as a two-dimensional surface contour. The antigenicity levels of untreated castor meals were found to be significantly different. This difference was not retained after treatment. Because of the uncertainty of the antigenicity of the pomace before treatment, an alcohol extract from castor beans (CBWU) has been adopted as a standard for potency evaluations. Amino acid analyses were performed on selected treatments. Considerable antigen deactivation has been achieved using mild steam treatments, e.g., 10 psig for 60 min. This process has a mild effect upon the essential amino acid, lysine.

The passive cutaneous anaphylaxis method has been used to evaluate residual antigenicity in castor bean pomace. This paper compares the results obtained using two routes of antigen challenge, intradermal (ID) and intravenous (IV). Passively sensitized guinea pigs were challenged with untreated and steam treated castor meal extract. An analysis of variance of the data shows there was greater variability between pigs within dose for the IV assay method compared to the ID technique. The ID assay also showed greater precision of the potency estimates.