Genetic analysis of some physiological traits related to drought stress in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.)

Diallel crosses of eight cultivars and breeding lines of safflower were conducted. F2 generations were evaluated to estimate genetic parameters for some physiological traits under drought stress with Griffing’s methods 2. Evaluated traits were: Chlorophyll index, Chlorophyll a, Chlorophyll b, carotenoids, relative water content, specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen content and plantlet height. Genotypes of F2 generation (36) were evaluated in a complete randomized block designs with three replication at Research greenhouse of college of Agriculture Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman Analysis of variance based on Griffing’s method revealed significant general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) mean squares of all studied traits in F2 generations, implementing the importance of additive and non-additive genetic effects. Low narrow-sense heritability estimates and high estimates of dominance effects for all of the studied traits indicated the importance of non-additive genetic efficiency for these traits. Hence the efficiency of hybrid production method would be high for them.