Molecular Plant Breeding 2016, Vol.7, No.31, 1
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5
1
Research Report Open Access
Characters Associations and Path Analysis in Safflower (
Carthamus tinctorious
)
Accessions
Semahegn Y. , Tesfaye M
Holetta Research Center, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, P.O.Box 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Corresponding author Email
Molecular Plant Breeding,
2016, Vol.7, No.31 doi
Received: 18 July., 2016
Accepted: 24 July., 2016
Published: 15 Aug., 2016
Copyright © 2016
Cui et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Semahegn Y., and Tesfaye M., 2016, Phylogenetic Relationship of Lilies (
Lilium
) Analyzed based on trnH-psbA Barcode Technology,
Molecular Plant
Breeding, 7(31): 1-5 (doi
Abstract
Safflower as a potential oil crops which can be used as an alternative to the existing widely cultivated oil crops in
Ethiopia needs seed yield improvement which inturn relies on its component characters. Examining character association and their
interrelationships is helpful in selecting the breeding material for improving the complex trait such as seed yield. A study was carried
out during 2012 cropping season to determine the associations of characters and partition of this association into direct and indirect
effects on seed yield of safflower. Correlation coefficient analysis showed that seed yield recorded significant positive association
with days to flowering (0.190), plant height (0.234), number of capitula (0.172), number of seed per plant (0.834) and hundred seed
weight (0.197). The highest positive direct effect was revealed by number of seed per plant (0.89) followed by hundred seed weight
(0.106) as depicted by path coefficient analysis. This study showed that number of seed per plant is the most important yield
component followed by seed weight. Therefore, this suggests that direct selection based on these characters would be effective for the
improvement of safflower.
Keywords
Accessions; Correlation coefficient; Path coefficient; Safflower; Seed yield
Introduction
Safflower (
Carthamus tinctorious
L., 2n=24) is a member of the family compositae or Asteraceae, cultivated
mainly for its seed as vegetable oil and bird seed (Lie and Mundel, 1996; Yadava et al., 2012). Traditionally, it is
used as a source of carthamin for coloring foods, fabric painting, vegetable and medicine (McGuire et al., 2012).
It is also used as hay or silage (Smith, 1996) and as a snack food in Ethiopia and Sudan (Belayneh and
Wolde-Mariam, 1991). Safflower, as an oil plant, has a long history of cultivation in Ethiopia and India (Weiss,
2000), and locally named “suff’’ in Ethiopia (Ashri, 1957; Smith, 1996). Despite its controversy, Ethiopia was
proposed as the primary center in the evolution of safflower (Vavilov, 1951). Ethiopia is the fourth world leading
producer of safflower after India, USA, Mexico (Yadava et al., 2012). In Ethiopia, according to CSA (2008/9) data
it was grown in an area of 7,853 ha and produced 6581.4 tonnes with productivity of 0.9 tonne/ha. The crop has
tremendous potential to be grown under varied conditions (Golkar, 2014). Safflower is a long-season crop with a
deep taproot that can draw moisture from deep in the subsoil. It is drought and heat tolerant, and can be grown in
arid and semi-arid areas (Lie and Mundel, 1996). Despite its importance, its production is limited in Ethiopia,
perhaps due to lack of awareness of the crop and its relatively low productivity and research attention is scanty.
Nevertheless, safflower is an important crop which can be used as an alternative oil crop in Ethiopia. In order to
enhance the production and productivity of safflower, due attention has to be given on the improvement of this
crop.
As the yield is a complex character in improvement endeavour, determining the relationship of the component
characters as well as the cause and effect relationships are essential for indirect selection in enhancing the yield
potential of safflower (Singh, 1991; Consentino et al., 1997; Patil, 1998; Omidi, 2001; Mahasi et al., 2006;
Mozaffari and Asadi, 2006; Ahmadzadeh et al., 2012). Studies showed that number of head per plant had
significant positive correlation with seed yield in safflower (Nezhad and Talebi, 2015; Shinwari et al., 2014).
Ahmadzadeh (2013) reported significant positive relationship among number of seed per head and seed yield.
