RESPONSE OF SOWING TIME ON THE SEED YIELD TRAITS, YIELD AND QUALITY OF SAFFLOWER GENOTYPES IN SOUTHESTERN ANATOLIA OF TURKEY

This study was conducted to determine the suitable sowing date for two cultivar of safflower during 2013/14 and 2014/15 growing seasons at the research field of Dicle University, Anatolia, Turkey. The current research included four sowing dates viz., i) 20 October ii) 20 November, iii) 20 February, iv) 30 March; two genotypes of i) Remzibey, and ii) Dincer and fitted them in randomized complete bock design with three replications. The results revealed that the sowing dates remarkably influenced the yield traits of plant height, the number of branches, the number of capitulum and seed yield of safflower. The genotype Dincer performed better than the genotype Remzibey regarding yield traits and yield. The highest seed yield was obtained from the genotype Dincer (1891.3 kg ha-1) with the second sowing time of 20 November and the lowest yield (517.8 kg ha-1) was obtained from Remzibey with the fourth sowing time of 30 March Regarding the quality properties, it was observed that, the sowing time was significantly influenced the oil content, palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid, gama-linolenic acid, eicosadienoic acid and O/L. Oil content, meristic acid, palmitic acid, palmitoleic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, alpha-linoleic acid, gamma-linolenic acid, eicosadienoic acid, nervonic acid, , unsaturated fatty acid (UFA), SFA/UFA and O/L also varied significantly between the genotypes and the genotype Dincer performed better than Remzibey Yield traits, seed yield and, as well as quality traits of safflower were also influenced by the interaction of sowing time and genotypes in this study