Genetic Analysis of Oil Content and Fatty Acid Composition in Safflower (<i>Carthamus tinctorius</i> L.)

Abstract

Abstract The F 1 and F 2 progenies of eight‐parent diallel crosses were used to investigate the mode of inheritance of fatty acids, oil, and protein in safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius L.) seeds. The results indicated significant differences among the parents for general (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA). Relatively high narrow‐sense heritability was estimated for fatty acids including linoleic (0.84), oleic (0.77), palmitic (0.61), and stearic (0.6) acids. The high narrow‐sense heritability and the high ratio of GCA/SCA mean squares for all the fatty acids investigated indicate the important role of additive gene action in controlling these traits. In our experiment, however, low narrow‐sense heritability was obtained for oil (0.37) and protein (0.28) contents. Furthermore, the estimates of genetic variance components proposed the importance of non‐additive genetic effects that contribute to variation in oil and protein content. The overall results indicated that K 21 × Mex.22‐191 cross could be employed for the production of high oil yielding and high oleic acid safflower lines in breeding programs.