'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 HOMEGROWN ANTIOXIDANTS FROM ROSEMARY C. WELLWOOD, A.H. ARKELL, R.A. COLE The National Herb Centre, Warmington, Banbury, OX17 1DF, England Department of Botany, University of Reading, RG6 6AS, England

Antioxidant protection of lipids increases the shelf-life of pharmaceutical and food products, inhibits skin ageing and helps prevent cancer.  We sought a rapid method for ranking different clones (accessions) of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L) according to the oxidative activity of their extracts, determined at different stages of lipid oxidation.  Assays for free radical scavenging capacity and inhibition of oxidation gave reproducible and consistent results, which correlated well with concentrations of carnosic acid measured by HPLC.  Small-scale field trials in Warwickshire, Cornwall and Norfolk of 33 accessions were analysed by HPLC and ranked.  Six high yielding accessions were selected and planted for field-scale trials in 2001, looking into maximising antioxidant production per hectare.  We investigated biotic and abiotic elicitors to induce higher levels of carnosic acid.