IRRIGATED SAFFLOWER IN PHENOLOGICAL STAGES OF BRAZILIAN SOUTHEAST DRY SEASON

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to determinate the effect of irrigation regime imposed on development stages over growth components of safflower plants (Carthamus tinctorius L.) in autumn seeding in Engenheiro Coelho, SP, Brazil. The field test was accomplished at Red-Yellow Argisoil, typically fertile sandy texture type B, a completely randomized design with eight irrigation regimes and three replications. The irrigation regimes consisted of: non-irrigation (dry farming), irrigation at vegetative stage (V), irrigation at flowering stage (F), irrigation in the grain formation stage (G), irrigation in vegetative and flowering (VF), irrigation in vegetative and grain formation (VG), irrigation at flowering and grain formation (FG) and irrigation in vegetative, flowering and grain formation (VFG) (control). The study result shows that safflower is benefited by irrigation in vegetative period; however, irrigation is also effective when applied during flowering period on treatment that was under dry farming. The water shortage due to the irrigation restriction during the vegetative stage reduces morphological components of safflower growth. The grain and oil yield is affected by water restriction in all safflower cultivation stages. Treatment with water availability throughout the vegetative and flowering period produced 895 kg ha^–1 of grain yield.