Inheritance of carthamin and carthamidin in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.).

The safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is an oil seed crop from which the flowers is used as medicine and food colorants. The present investigation was undertaken to explore gene effects for safflower's pigments in flower including carthamin and carthamidin. Six generation including P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2 that derived from two different crosses (Mex. 2-138 (P2) × Wht-Esf (P1) and C111 (P2) × Wht-Esf (P1) were used for generation of mean analysis. The joint scaling test showed that additive [a], additive × additive [aa], and additive × dominance [ad] effects were significant for genetic control of carthamin and carthamidin in both crosses. The traits, including carthamidin and carthamin, had medium (48%) and low (17%) narrow-sense heritability, respectively. The results obtained here could be suitable for designing the breeding strategies based on selection to improve carthamin and carthamidin pigments in safflower.