Mohammad Nael Khattab^*(1)

(1). Crops Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.

(*Corresponding author: Dr. Mohammad Nael Khattab. E-Mail:

Received: 11/03/2018                                Accepted: 06/10/2018

Abstract

In this study some of the phenological, morphological and productivity characteristics of six safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) genotypes (local, Thick orange 480 ،Acar 6، Syrian-1,  Gila and Son 11), were assessed using some genetic indicators (genetic and phenotypic variances, genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients, broad- sense heritability and genetic advance between seeds yield and its components) at  Dmsrkho site in Latakia governorate, during two seasons (2014/2015) and (2015/2016). Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was used with three replicates, to detect the genetic potentiality to be exploited to a maximum extent therefor, to determine the appropriate selectorial indices to improve safflower crop. Analysis of variance indicated that the genotypes differed significantly (P<0.05) for all studied characters, moreover, years effect and genotype by years interaction were significant for all studied traits. The values of mean and range revealed that there is wide variability among genotypes for most of the characters. The biological yield per plant, seed yield per plant, number of seeds per capitulum, number of capitulum per plant, number of branches per plant and harvest index exhibited wide range and high PCV and GCV giving an opportunity for improvement through election. Besides, these characters also had narrow differences between the values of PCV and GCV showing least influence of environment. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance observed for seed yield per plant, biological yield per plant, 100 seed weight, plant height and number of seeds per capitulum indicated that these traits are governed by additive gene action. Hence, there are good chances of improvement of these traits through direct selection. The highest phenotypic correlations were observed between seed yield with some traits such as: biological yield/plant and No. of capitula/plant, thus these traits, may be used for selecting high yielding genotypes.

Keywords: Safflower, Heritability, Genetic advance, Genetic variance, Phenotypic variance, Correlation coefficient.

Full paper in English: PDF