DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF THE SEED YIELD POTENTIAL OF BUCKWHEAT (FAGOPYRUM-ESCULENTUM)

The goal of the investigations was to quantify the potential and the utilization level of the seed yield of buckwheat. A two years field trial including five cultivars, different sowing dates and sowing rates was conducted. By sampling individual plants of the cv. Emka periodically, seed set was observed in detail. Handy-harvested samples from plots of all cultivars allowed the estimation of the ''produced seed yield''. The ''harvested seed yield'' resulted from combining the field plots. - The buckwheat plant developed up to two months continuously new seeds. Calculated seed yields from the analyses of individual plants exceeded even those of the handy-harvested samples. The latter indicated seed yields up to 4 t/ha. On an average only about 50 % or less of this amount were harvested by combine. Without important differences between cultivars sowing dates later than mid-may reduced the seed yield levels and increased the losses of seeds. An extremely high sowing rate of 1000 seeds/m2 reduced the losses without affecting the levels of harvested yields.