Mustard and Its Products

Mustard is one of the oldest recorded crops being grown by the man, and its evidences can be traced in literature across the world. The crop has diversified uses and evolved from the Stone Age to modern times. While, in historic times, it was simply consumed as paste or whole seeds, but with more intricate knowledge of its nutritional values and phytochemical constituents, its uses have been elaborated. In modern times, it is not only used as food but also found to be used in industries for preparing soaps, leather products, fertilizers, manures, honey crops, medicines, etc. With time, the intensified research on mustard has led to development of new hybrid seed varieties with improved quality traits. The present chapter throws light on the journey of mustard in the past decades and its evolution with time. The chapter deals with history of mustard, its origin and domestication, taxonomy of Indian mustard and related species, botanical aspects of mustard, its uses, history of the commercial journey of Indian mustard, ten decades of research and development of mustard in India, mustard as an oilseed crop, and related aspects. The chapter has two annexures. Annexure I gives an extended note on the agronomy of Indian mustard. Annexure II is a copy of the technical bulletin on mustard published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. It is prepared jointly by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF & CC) and Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur, under UNEP/GEF supported Phase II Capacity Building Project on Biosafety (also see Annexures I and II for crop biology, production, and protection aspects).