Evaluation of Promising Genotypes of Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) to Drought

The field experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of released/promising safflower genotypes to drought tolerance. The experiment was grown under two conditions stress and non-stress. The moisture stress was induced by sowing the crop with double spacing (45 x10 cm) and non-stress by normal spacing (45 x 20). Out of ten genotypes tested the genotypes viz., A-1, Bhima, PBNS-12, NARI-6, Phule Kusuma, AKSF-68 and GMU-499 were found promising to drought under stress condition on the basis of drought indices viz., RLWC, DSI, DTE/I, HI, Percent reduction in yield and chlorophyll content. The lower values of drought susceptibility index, The higher values of relative water content (RLWC), drought tolerant efficiency/index (DTE/I), harvest index, total chlorophyll content were recognized as beneficial drought tolerant indicators and may be used as selection criteria in safflower breeding programme.