Re: HYB: extracting pigment

I found the lycopene (and presumably other oil soluble pigments) are
much more stubborn to extract than the water/alcohol soluble pigments,
whether I was using warmed lamp oil or warmed safflower oil.  Some of
the pigment would come out pretty easily, but never was able to extract
all (?most) of the "pink" lycopene.

I don't own a mortar and pestle.  To mash up the flower parts, I was
using a wooden sausage grinder pusher (the wooden 'stick' used to push
meat into the grinder) that happens to be almost the same diameter as
the little glass jars containing solvent.

Is there a trick to extracting all of the pink (or other oil soluble)
pigment?  Would a 5 hour cold soak work as well as for the water/alcohol
soluble pigments?

Interesting to me that the pink color remains after the structure of the
petal and cells is mostly? partly? smashed.  Whatever makes extracted
orange red lycopene pigments appear pink would seem to be mostly in the
plastids or pieces of plastid, not related to the structure of the petal
or arrangement of cells.

Could red be the actual color of the lycopene pigment in situ and orange
be an artifact of the extractants?

<The lycopene will dissolve in benzene and in oil. Chuck Chapman>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
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online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>





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