IDENTIFICATION OF COLD TOLERANCE AND SOME AGRONOMIC TRAITS OF ADVANCED
SAFFLOWER GENOTYPES DEVELOPED BY HYBRIDIZATION
Abstract
The development of winter-tolerant safflower genotypes is crucial for
the improvement of global safflower agriculture. The aim of the present
study was to determine the cold tolerance abilities and some
agricultural characteristics of advanced safflower genotypes. For this
purpose, ten advanced safflower genotypes were used in four different
locations. The experimental design was a randomized complete block
design with three replications. Winter survival and agricultural
characters were significantly affected by growing season, location and
genotype. Winter survival varies between 86.43% and 93.91% among the
genotypes, and it was promising for winter sowing. As the average of two
years, the highest oil content (36.25%) was observed in genotype EC21
and it was followed by genotypes EC11 (35.51%) and EC20 (35.49%). As
with the seed yield, the high winter survival of genotypes with high oil
content is highly promising in terms of winter sowing. Safflower should
be grown in winter with mild temperature regions for high seed yield and
sustainable safflower production. Therefore, this study focused on
winter-tolerant genotypes that are superior one in terms of seed yield
and oil content.