Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.): A Comprehensive Review of Its Diverse Applications and Recent Advances in Genetic Improvement

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is an underutilized oilseed crop with numerous past and present applications. For centuries, it was grown for its flowers, which were rich in various pigments such as hydroxysafflor yellow A, anhydrosafflor yellow B, safflor yellow A, and safflor yellow B that were used for food coloring and flavoring, fabric dyes, and medicinal purposes of Asian and European peoples. In the recent years, the need for healthy cooking oils, eco-friendly biofuel, and industrial biolubricants has increased, and safflower, with its high oleic acid content, has gained considerable attention. Safflower oil is also rich in linoleic acid that makes it suitable for human consumption. Despite its high adaptability to adverse growing conditions, high-yield potential, and diverse applications, safflower has received less research attention due to its reduced prominence in agricultural systems. Fortunately, during the past decades, the well characterization of world-wide germplasm resources of safflower has changed the situation by exploiting available intra and interspecific genetic variability to develop well-adapted high-yielding varieties. The emergence of modern molecular methodology and next-generation sequencing techniques have promisingly enhanced the efficiency of breeding programs leading to the discovery of novel molecular markers capable of utilizing in phylogenetic studies, marker-assisted selection, QTL mapping, linkage analysis, genome-wide association studies, and genomic selection in safflower. This article will briefly review the importance of safflower and different aspects of genetic improvement in this crop, including safflower wild relatives, interspecific hybridization, molecular markers, and omics studies.