Technical Abstract: Jojoba, Simmondsia chinensis, (Link) Schneider is a shrub native to warm and arid land regions of North and Latin America. Its seeds contain vegetable oil composed of long (C20-22), straight-chain liquid wax of non-glyceride esters. Minute amounts of triglycerides in its composition make the oil a liquid and odorless wax. The oil and its derivatives may be utilized in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, electrical insulations, foam controlling agents, plasticizers and fire retardants. The oil contributes significantly to the seed weight and its content depends on the origin of the germplasm. The USDA-ARS, National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) maintains a jojoba collection at the National Arid Land Plant Genetics Resource Unit at Parlier, California. The objective of this study was to evaluate oil content in dry seeds of selected jojoba germplasm accessions maintained in the NPGS collection and in seed samples obtained from a discontinued breeding program at the University of California (UC). The oil content was determined in randomly selected seeds of 390 different accessions (97 from the NPGS and 293 from the UC program), using a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (one seed/replication; four replications). The oil content varied from 41.9 to 60.7% in the NPGS collection (PI 254487 and W6 10970, respectively) and from 44.3 to 61.2% in the UC material (PARL 530 and PARL 699, respectively). In general, the oil makes up 50% of jojoba seed weight. Accessions with higher than 50% oil content present valuable selection material for crop improvement via traditional breeding or asexual propagation. An analysis of the oil profile is also in progress. Together with available morphological characterization of the accessions, the data will contribute to a consolidation of the UC jojoba accessions, now in NPGS, to a manageable size.