STUDY ON EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT SULPHUR DOSES ON YIELD AND QUALITY OF SAFFLOWER (Carthamus tinctorius L.) CULTIVARS

This study was carried out during summer in 2010-2011 at the experimental fields on Faculty of Agriculture in Van Yuzuncu Yil University, Van province, Turkey. Different sulphur doses (0, 25 and 50 kg ha(-1)) were applied on safflower cultivars including Dincer (C1), Remzibey (C2) and Yenice (C3) in a randomised complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Several characteristics such as plant height (cm), number of branches (branch plant(-1)), number of secondary branches (piece), number of heads in the plant (piece), number of seeds per head (piece), thousand-seed weight (g), seed yield (kg ha(-1)), head diameter (cm), oil content (%) and protein content (%) were determined. Results showed that plant height, number of secondary branches, number of seeds per head, thousand-seed weight, seed yield, head diameter, oil content and protein content were significantly increased using different sulphur concentrations, but branch numbers as well as number of heads in the plant were not affected. The highest seed yield (1109.3 kg ha(-1)) was obtained at 50 kg ha(-1) sulphur concentration while the lowest yield (929.8 kg ha(-1)) was observed in control plots. The seed yields were 1039.8 and 1000.0 kg ha(-1) in the first and second year, respectively.