The Effect of Selenium Concentration on the Quantitative and Qualitative Yield of Four Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) Genotypes

Selenium (Se) plays an important role as a trace element in all the living organisms especially in animals. In plants, it can trigger a variety of plant growth cascades including germination, yield, and nutritional quality, but its higher dose can be toxic. Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is an important but neglected crop; therefore, this experiment was conducted to evaluate different foliar applied concentrations of Se on yield and quality of safflower genotypes. Experimental treatments include two factors, i.e., four safflower genotypes (16,427, 16,493, 26,733, and 26,748) combined with four foliar applied selenium (50, 100, 150, and 200 mg L−1) concentrations. Analyses of variance showed that Se treatments significantly improved the plant height, number of heads per plant, 1000-grain weight, grain and biological yield (total biomass), and oil quality of safflower genotypes and maximum values were obtained at 200 mg L−1 foliar applied Se which was statistically at par with 150 mg L−1 Se application for grain yield and oil quality. Genotype 26,748 performed better than the other genotypes. Based on the results, it is concluded that optimum concentration of Se for the improvement of safflower yield and oil quality is 150 mg L−1 but before commercial recommendation, studies must be conducted over different agroecological conditions. Moreover, at optimum dose, determination of selenium content in oil is highly recommended so that any increase in production must not be at the cost of quality.