Evaluation of the germ plasm collection of safflower Carthamus tinctorius L. VI. Length of planting to flowering period and plant height in Israel, Utah and Washington.

Germ plasm collections of safflower, Carthamus tinctorius L. were evaluated for variability and divergence in two traits which are strongly influenced by the environment, viz. length of the growing period from planting to flowering (GPPF) and plant height. The test locations were: Bet-Dagan, Israel, 1969, about 2000 lines; Logan, Utah, USA, 1964, about 1000 lines; Washington, USA, 1959, 339 lines. Natural selection produced a wide range of variation for length of the GPPF: there were considerable differences between introductions from the same countries. Divergence between lines within countries for GPPF length was so extensive that there was little evident divergence between regions. Generally lines from the Indian subcontinent, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and France were earlier, while those from Turkey and Ethiopia were later. Some significant but inconsistent correlations were obtained between the length of the GPPF and other traits measured in Utah. It was not significantly correlated with yield and yield components or with oil content. Therefore, selection can be applied for a shorter GPPF without effecting yield or oil content.Plant height variations between lines from the same countries were very high in all test locations, still divergence between regions was apparent. The means of the lines from the Indian subcontinent were the lowest while those of the lines from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Ethiopia were the highest in all the locations tested. Plant height was not correlated significantly with yield/plant and yield components in the Indian and Egyptian lines, and with yield and some components in the Iranian lines. Therefore, it appears possible to breed shorter, high yielding varieties.The correlations of GPPF and of plant height between test locations though low, were highly significant. Generally, the lines maintained their developmental pattern (early vs. late, short vs. tall) in the different nurseries, but there were position changes within the groups.