MORPHOLOGICAL AND QUALITATIVE PROPERTIES OF SUNFLOWER SEEDS IN DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SOURCE AND SINK REDUCTION

1-Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Aboureihan Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.2- Young Researchers Club, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran.Corresponding Author Email: lfarahani@alumni.ut.ac.irABSTRACT: In order to evaluate the effect of changing source and sink size on seed physicalproperties of sunflower hybrids, an experiment was conducted in factorial based on RCBD withthree replications in 2009 at Aboureihan research farm of university of Tehran. Azargol, SHF81-90 hybrids and source and sink treatments including removed 1/2 lower leaves, removed 1/2 upperleaves, removed 1/2 seeds, removed 1/4 seeds and control (wit hout removing leaf and seed) werethe factors. The images of seeds were taken using digital camera and some morphological featureswere extracted using image analysis. The results indicated that there was significant differencebetween the hybrids in Area, Elongation, Roundness, Perimeter, Convex area, 100 grain weightand ratio of grain coat to grain core at 5% and 1% probability levels. Effect of changing sourceand sink was significant on all traits except Perimeter at 5% and 1% probability levels. In all traitsAzargol was better than the other hybrid. By removing 1/4 seeds and 1/2 upper leaves all traitswas increased and decreased, respectively. Correlation between 100 grain weight with elongation(r=+0.80), roundness (r=+0.76), area (r=+0.59), extent (r=+0.68), convex area (r=+0.59), andcompactness (r=-0.64) and oil percent (r=+0.55) was significant (P<0.01). This resultsemphasized that source-sink ratio has an important role in quantitative and qualitative propertiesof seeds.Key words: Grain weight; Image analysis; Leaf; Oil Percent.I