Morphological and agronomic characterization of Turkish Vaccaria hispanica (Mill.) Rauschert populations

Authors: ESİN ARI, NEDİM MUTLU, İNANÇ SOYLU, HİLAL BEDİR, İLKER GENÇ, İSMAİL GÖKHAN DENİZ

Abstract: Vaccaria hispanica (Mill) Rauschert, also known as cow cockle, is an important candidate for industrial crop species that has yet to be fully domesticated. Therefore, characterization of germplasms is crucial to initiate and select for economic use. The study reports cultivation, characterization, and seed production of 66 wild V. hispanica genotypes, collected throughout Turkey that represent the available genetic pool. The study was carried out in an unheated greenhouse in Antalya, under Mediterranean climate from December to early June. The populations were evaluated for 21 morphological and 6 agronomic traits. The highest coefficient of variation (CV) for morphological traits was detected for the length of the smallest leaf (84.76%), the number of main branches on stem (57.5%), degree of petals imbricate (46.5%), and the flower number of the top five dichasium (42.27%). Among the agronomic traits, the number of seeds per capsule (27.88%), seed yield per plant (24.34%), and total yield per plant (23.74%) showed the highest three CVs. The minimummaximum values of the seed yield per plant, total yield per plant, 1000 seed weight, and number of seeds per capsule were determined as 54.4-186 g, 173.3-616 g, 4.5-7.9 g and 3.3-15.3, respectively. The results revealed the potential cultivation of V. hispanica under greenhouse and Mediterranean climate conditions. In addition, various plant characteristics enabled us to select different phenotypes and variants for future breeding studies for both industrial and ornamental plant use.

Keywords: Breeding, cow cockle, domestication, industrial crop, seed yield, TSW

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