Agronomic and technological evaluation of a world safflower collection in Moroccan conditions.

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a minor crop well adapted to semi-arid regions. In Morocco, a breeding programme has been launched recently in order to develop adapted varieties with high agronomic and technological potential. In 2006, a total of 212 accessions from different origins were collected and evaluated in 2 different locations for agronomic and technological characters. From this set, 181 accessions achieved successfully their growth and development cycle. The results of this study showed that a large variability existed between these accessions for the spinelessness, the height of plants, the earliness, the branching, the resistance to leaf rust, the thousand seed weight (TSW), the seed yield per plant and the oil content. Also, the location and the accession x location interaction effect was significant. The vegetal material exhibited, for all traits, highest potential in favourable environment (Allal Tazi) than in less favourable one (Douyet). The genotypes with high seed yield per plant were also characterized by a high TSW and were, in general, early flowering, dwarf and spiny. The genotypes having elevated seed oil content were those that had small seeds often associated with reduced hull. The accessions have been grouped into 5 pools on the basis of the most interesting traits: seed yield per plant, seed oil content, spinelessness, earliness and resistance to leaf rust. The nature and the composition of such pool should be confirmed after assessing the accessions for one more year. Selected genotypes from each pool will be used as elite parents in our safflower crossing programme.