Time of harvesting petals influence on carthamin and carthamidin content and yield components in safflower: A review

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a multipurpose oilseed and industrial crop with great potential to be grown in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Safflower petals are a source of carthamin and carthamidin used for medicinal purposes, natural food colourant, colouring of cosmetics and dyeing textile fabrics. Safflower is an attractive option from the synthetic colourants. Despite the many uses of safflower flowers, petal production is still at its infancy stage compared to seed production. Understanding the best time to harvest safflower petals will promote safflower production and product development hence diversify farmer incomes. Therefore, this review complies literature on how time of harvesting petals influences petal yield, seed yield, carthamin, and carthamidin contents in safflower. Keywords: Carthamus tinctorius L., natural dye, petals, plant pigments