Dr. Soheil Mahmoud
UBC-Okanagan Biologist Dr. Soheil Mahmoud heads the research team studying lavender.
In recent years a vibrant market for lavender has developed in North America, including British Columbia and Ontario. The Okanagan Valley is an important lavender-growing area in BC.
A research team at UBC-Okanagan headed by Biologist Dr. Soheil Mahmoud is studying the genetic content of lavender cells to understand how the plant produces its valuable scented oils.
The essential oil of lavenders is constituted mainly of scented biochemical compounds known as monoterpenes. The relative abundance of these compounds determines the specific aroma and medicinal properties of a given species. Building on the team’s previous work where it looked at genes from a random sampling of cells taken from the entire leaves and flowers of lavender plants, the current research targets genes only from the oil-producing gland cells of the lavender flower petals. Mahmoud’s research group has isolated several genes that control production of essential oil constituents in lavenders which can be used to enhance the quality and yield of these oils.
While the Okanagan plays host to a number of lavender farms, they are small by comparison to large European producers, which typically grow thousands of acres of lavender. “Because the industry in the Okanagan is a niche market, it has to produce a very high quality of lavender oil,” points out Mahmoud.
The research underway not only helps Okanagan growers develop new varieties of lavender that produce essential oils in greater quantity or higher quality, it will advance plant science and provide significant economic benefits to farmers and businesses that depend on lavender to create their products throughout Canada and other parts of the world.
Supported by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), National Research Council of Canada (NRC), Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC, Genome British Columbia and local lavender growers.