Mustard seeds are yellowish colored, small seeds that are used as a spice in many countries. These seeds are obtained from bush like mustard plant that belongs to the genus Brassica that also include vegetables like cabbage and turnips.

Rapeseed belongs to the plant of the same genus and also known as canola in many countries. In old English, rapum is a name of the present day turnip and the name rapeseed is derived from rapum only.

Mustard seed and rapeseed have great importance in many countries as spices. But, these seeds have important by-products too. Rapeseeds and mustard seeds are sources of rapeseed/mustard seed oil and oilcake. Yellow colored oil is obtained by extraction process of the crushed rape/mustard seeds. In the market, rape oil is not distinguished from mustard oil as both of these come from the same species and possess same properties.

During the production of oil, pressed cakes of the seeds are left over that have some amount of oil content. These cakes are distilled to make oil cakes, which serves as an animal feed. In the production process, around 37% oil is yielded and the rest is oil cake.

Mustard and rapeseed production is on a rising. World’s total production of rapeseed hovers around 40 million tones. Mustard seed production reached at a figure of 36.54 million tones in 2001-2002. European Union leads the list of rapeseed producing countries with around 13 million tons of production. The production of rapeseed oil is around 14 million tons.

As the leading producing countries rapeseed oil usually produce it to meet their own domestic demand, that’s why the world trade in this oil is very low as compared to the other edible oils. Canada is the largest exporter of the mustard and rapeseed seeds and seed oil. Australia follows Canada in the production of seeds. The major seed importing countries are Japan and Mexico and US leads the list of mustard and rapeseed oil importing countries.

Mustard/Rapeseed cultivation is done widely throughout the world. It is basically a winter crop and it requires a temperate climate to prosper. The planting season or the sowing period in India is during the Rabi season i.e. October to November. The crop starts flowering in the months of November, December, January and February. The harvesting period is from February to March. It needs a right proportion of rainfall that is provided by the monsoon during the sowing seasons of the crop. The rapeseed/mustard crop is actually acts as a very good cover of soil in winters.