Black Mustard – Brassica nigraB, nigra is the native to the Mediterranean region, where it is reported as a fossil from prehuman Pleistocene time.
The species probably joined Neolithic agriculture as a volunteer in wheat and barley fields, spreading with those crops through Eurasia and North Africa.
Millennia later B. nigra went with those crops overseas its seeds often carried accidentally with the cereal grain.
In California, for example, it was a weed during the Spanish period, and its remains are common in adobe in the early missions.
Use of mustard seed as a spice dates from beginning of written history in Babylonia and India and is abundantly recorded in classical Greek, Roman, and biblical sources.
Although other species of Brassica were also used, it seems likely that B. nigra was the main source in ancient history as it has been in modern history.
Traditionally, mustard is prepared by mixing a small amount of seed of white mustard Sinapsis alba, other spices, and a lot of B. nigra seed.
In ancient times, volunteer were probably more than adequate without deliberate planting,. Cultivation of B. nigra as a field crop came after Medieval times, along with commercial production in Düsseldorf, Dijon, and a few other European towns.
Cultivated B. nigra retained the wild and weed type of dehiscent fruit, which scattered the seeds as they ripened.
Much weed always escaped harvest to contribute volunteer plants to the next crop. The only way to obtain a good yield was repeated hand harvesting of ripening fruit.
During the 1950s, growers suddenly abandoned the old B. nigra for indehiscent cultivars of B. juncea, which could be machine harvested.
Black Mustard – Brassica nigra
