Seed yieid and oil content of safflower as affected by genotypes and sowing dates

The experiment was conducted at two locations; Grdarasha and Sumail of Erbil and Duhok governorates respectively, in Kurdistan region, during spring season 2013 and winter season 2013-2014 to study the effect of sowing dates on seed yield and oil content of safflower genotypes. A split-plot arrangement in a randomized complete block design was used with three replicates; sowing dates were assigned to main plots and genotypes to sub-plots. The results revealed that the first sowing date of spring (April 11th ) and winter (Noveber 13 th) seasons produced the highest seed yield 1277.6 and 1583.7 kg ha-1 in spring season and 2676.5 and 1904.2 kg ha-1 in winter season at Grdarasha and Sumail locations respectively. In winter season; Rabee 500 genotype at Grdarasha location and Aurduny genotype at Sumail location surpassed other genotypes in seed yield (2246.7 and 1636.2 kg ha-1). In spring season; seeds of early date (April 11th) and Aurduny genotype were characterized by recording the highest oil percentage (30.28 and 29.58%) at Grdarasha location and (31.81 and 31.77%) at Sumail location respectively. In contrast, in winter season the fourth sowing date and G2018 genotypes seeds were characterized by the highest oil percentage (28.62 and 29.13%) at Grdarasha location and (29.11 and 28.14%) at Sumail location.