Résumé:
Our study was conducted in INPV station of Cosnstantine North Eastern Algeria. The experimental material consists of nine safflower varieties different in their geographic origin. These genotypes were cultivated in the field based on the randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Since Safflower is a drought tolerant crop, the objective of this work was the investigation of the contribution of some morpho-phenological and productivity traits on seed and oil yields and fatty acid oil content of safflower varieties under semi-arid conditions.
ANOVA, PCA, correlation matrix analysis between variables (traits), and the cluster analysis of observations (varieties), are used to clarify the clustering pattern of genotypes tested. The variability was also remarked among genotypes when the fatty acid composition of seed oil was tested.
The results revealed that the most suitable safflower variety, under semi-arid conditions of eastern Algeria was Syprus which was provided from ICARDA. It gave the highest seeds yield (420.53 g/m2) and oil yield (114,56 g/m2). The American variety 80/482/3S came in the second position with 358,46 g/m2 and 80,29 g/m2 for the two yields, respectively, while the least variety was OT-455
(Indian origin) with 144,68 g/m2 for seeds yield and 40,63 g/m2 for oil yield, and it gave the highest weight of one hundred seeds (4.44 g). Considering the seeds fixed oil percent (%OY), we note the advantage of the American varieties, where Gila produced the highest rate (38.47 %), and Kusumba (Pakistani origin) had the lowest with 23,30 %.
From the analysis of the correlation matrix, we have seen that seed yield (SY) and oil yield (OY) were controlled essentially by three parameters (traits):
number of seeds per plant (NSP), biological yield (BIO) and harvest index (HI).
Looking for fatty acid composition, our results confirm that safflower is considered as the best example of a crop with variability for fatty acid composition in seed oil, and this explain clearly their multiples purposes in cooking and cosmetic and in medicine.
