Genetic studies of oil content in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.)

Abstract

Safflower is an ancient oilseed crop and has been acknowledged as a healthy vegetable oil. Though India is the largest producer, the area under safflower has been declining mainly due to low productivity and less profitability. Safflower genotypes with higher oil content would help to make the crop commercially viable and regain its area owing to its high oil quality compared to its competitive counter parts. The genetic improvement of safflower for higher oil content is an urgent need and involves an understanding of genetics of the trait. A-1, a popular highly resilient variety in India since 1969 with good yield has low oil content of 28% and needs to be improved for oil content. Baccum-92, a Mexican line with high oil of 37% was used in a cross with A-1 to develop 6 generations to study the inheritance of oil content and to simultaneously identify the segregants with high yield and oil content. The six generation mean analysis revealed that additive, dominance components and epistatic interactions of additive × additive and dominance × dominance with duplicate gene interaction determined the inheritance of oil content. One (43.52%) and 3 (ranging from 39.06 to 39.98%) segregants having 5% superiority over the better parent Bacum-92 were observed in F2 and BC1P1, respectively. 5 segregants with higher yield than A-1 coupled with high oil content of more than 31% were identified across the populations which can be stabilized and used in safflower improvement.