Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi, I know it is a little early but I have been thinking recently about Sunflowers and, in particular, their oil.

Firstly, does anyone know the process to extract oil from sunflowers, and secondly, what kind of yields is it possible to get from them?

Thanks for the help
Liam

That's an interesting thought, I would be keen to find out the answer.

It depends on what you want to get as an end product ug. It is possible to cold-press - ie mechanical extraction similar to that used for olive oil. Other processes are also used depending on the grade required.

Have no idea as to the yields though.

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Bright Blessings
Earthbabe
If at first you don't succeed, open a bottle of wine.

Its a bit technical but hope this helps
http://www.richters.com/link.cgi?lin...=7482247.24750
Its section 10 that you should find the most usefull.

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Don't take away the SNC

Too much for me at this time of night beefy. Eyes boggling looking at the first sentence in section 10. I coped with section 9 though. It only had four or five lines and lots of little words.

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Bright Blessings
Earthbabe
If at first you don't succeed, open a bottle of wine.

Hi, that article is really good thanks - it says that a 40% of seed weight to oil weight is technically possible. I imagine that you would get nowhere near this with a cold-press though? Still, might be possible to get a decent amount.

Surely we need to aim at quality and not quantity..so first cold-press at a pressure of around 300 atmospheres held for seven to nine minutes exactly to provide an extravirgin sunflower oil. In the Modern Herbal by Mrs M. Grieve there is a beautiful section devoted at the sunflower, every part of the plant is used but it is too long for me to write it down. If you have land to spare surely it will be interesting to produce your own oil not so much for the savings but just out of curiosity. You can spend a whole life ( your own ) watching a field full of sunflowers in full bloom and it wouldn't be a waste of life.
My best regards
Don Vincenzo

Not oil, but...
2 years ago I grew a crop of sunflower seeds to feed my parrots...it took 3 of us 3 days to shell them all, our nails were black and sore at the end of it...and the seeds only cost about 10p a kilo in the petshop. Now I leave the heads in situ for the wild birds to help themselves.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Hello
may I ask you how many acres of land were dedicated to the sunflowers and how many parrots you have. It takes me about 2 minutes to prepare a rabbit and around 3 minutes for a chicken. Never prepared or shelled a parrot before!!!
Regards
Don Vincenzo

I have been having a scout around but there doesn't seem to be a domestic seed press available in the uk? Does anyone know where I can get one?

sunflower oil? why not get a couple of Olive trees? They take less space for the same ammount of oil!

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields