AGRONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND SEED QUALITY OF BRASSICA NAPUS, B. CARINATA AND B. JUNCEA DIFFERENT LINES GROWN IN SOUTHERN ITALY ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

M. Mazzoncini¹, C. Santonoceto², L. Crocè², A. M. Giuffrè³

¹ Dipartimento di Agronomia e Gestione dell’Agroecosistema-Università di Pisa

² Dipartimento di Agrochimica-Università di Reggio Calabria-89061 Gallina (RC), Italy

³ Istituto di Microbiologia e Tecnologia Agraria e Forestale-Università di Reggio Calabria

ABSTRACT

The biological and productive behaviour and oil quality of twenty oilseed lines belonging to the species Brassica napus, B. carinata and B. juncea was studied during a two-year period of trials carried out in a hilly location in southern Italy. Both the grain yield, on average 2.38 t ha^-1, and the duration of the life cycle, divided into its various phases, are comparable to those observed, in over a decade of research, on traditional oilseed rape double low winter and spring cultivars whose adaptability to the above mentioned environment has been widely demonstrated. The highest seed oil and erucic acid contents were detected in the Norin 16 (B. napus) and 181026 (B. juncea) lines. However, line 68-5702 (B. carinata), in virtue of its high yielding capacity, produced a higher oil yield than all the other lines and an erucic acid yield second only to that produced by Norin 16.

KEY WORDS: Brassicaceae, seed yield, oil content, fatty acid composition.

INTRODUCTION

       The number of crops suitable for dry-land production system in the south of Italy is limited to those species which grow in the autumn-spring period.

       The reduction of grassland and winter faba bean areas following the crisis in the livestock sector, has caused a progressive process of simplification of the crop rotations that has led to the monoculture of winter wheat.

       Research carried out since 1986 has identified oilseed rape as a potential rotational crop with cereals in the areas mentioned above. (Santonoceto and Abbate, 1988; Abbate and Santonoceto, 1989; Santonoceto, 1990; Santonoceto, 1991; Santonoceto and Abbate, 1991; Santonoceto et al., 1992; Santonoceto and Anastasi, 1993; Santonoceto et al., 1993; Santonoceto, 1997).

The constraints imposed on the crop by these environments can be summarized by the drought conditions and the high temperatures which often occur during the final phases of the cycle. The phenological traits found to be beneficial in supporting the yield in these conditions were the early flowering and a sufficiently long ripening phase.

However, for almost a decade attention was focussed on double low (00) winter and spring varieties and only recently has interest been directed towards a number of brassica species characterised by a fatty acid composition different from those traditional cultivars previously mentioned.

The aim of this work is to obtain the first information on the productive and biological behaviour and on the variation in fatty acid composition in a number of lines belonging to three species, Brassica napus, B. carinata and B. juncea, in an environment in southern Italy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

       Trials were carried out, during the 1993/94 and 1994/95 seasons, in a randomised complete block designs with 5 replicates at the University of Reggio Calabria Farm, Gallina, in the south of Italy (Lat. N 38°10’, 252 m a.s.l.).

In both years, 5 genotypes of Brassica napus, 6 of B. juncea and 9 of B carinata, listed in table 1, were evaluated. Owing to the small quantity of seeds available, the experimental plot comprised only 5 rows, each 2 m long and spaced 35 cm apart with no space between the plots. The previous crop in both years was winter wheat. The sowing rate was 160 seeds m^-2. The sowing dates were 10 December in 1993 and 12 December in 1994.

       The times taken (in days) from sowing (S) to emergence (A) and then to the beginning of flowering (F1) and from flowering to the colour change of the seeds (G5) were recorded according to the CETIOM growth-stage key (1978).

       Grain yield was estimated after excluding 30 cm from the top and bottom borders of the plots and then adjusted to 9 % moisture.

       Seed oil content (% d.m.) was determined using the Soxhlet method. The fatty acid composition of the oil was evaluated according to the official method of the European Community (1991). In particular, methyl esters (FAMEs) of fatty acids were prepared prior to GC analysis by transmethylation of the oil adopting the “B procedure”.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

       The mean daily temperature and monthly rainfall from October to June for the two seasons are illustrated in fig.1. The mean temperature was almost constantly higher in the first of the two years, 1.6°C on average.

       The minimum absolute temperatures recorded during the winter months never dropped below 4.5 and 2.0°C respectively in the first and second year.

       The maximum absolute temperatures in both years did not reach critical levels for the crop and temperatures slightly in excess of 30°C were only recorded between the end of May and the beginning of June.

       Rainfall totals were 416 and 532 mm respectively in the two years, ¾ of which was concentrated in the first half of the growing season.

       Fig.2 shows the duration of the crop cycle and its main phenological phases in each line in the two years of trials.

The biological variability of the 20 lines studied allows several analogies to be pointed out with those of traditional cultivars of oilseed rape tested in previous years and whose adaptability to the environment in which they were studied has been widely documented.

The biological behaviour of Mulchower, Gan You, Norin 16 (B. napus), K66, 181026, (B. juncea) and 194252 (B. carinata), which, on average, began to flower between 104 and 116 days after sowing and ripened between 51 and 59 days after flowering, is comparable to that of a number of spring varieties of oilseed rape, which, sown in a similar period, have shown an average interval between sowing and flowering of 110±3.2 (`x±sx, n=10) (Santonoceto and Anastasi, 1999) days and an interval of 56±4.9 days between flowering and ripening. Other lines such as 1275/90 (B. napus), 196836, 194901 and 193759 (B. carinata), with variations of the intervals seen previously ranging from 125 to 129 days and 45 to 53 days respectively, flowered and ripened several days earlier in comparison to the winter oilseed rape cultivars for which average values for the two phases seen above were respectively 131±5.3 and 49±8.4 days (`x±sx, n=12). However, no relationships were found between the two phases previously described and grain yield.

This may have been the result of the favourable temperature and rainfall regimes during the two seasons and also of the earliness of the genotypes studied. Both these factors may have allowed the lines to avoid the environmental stress described in the introduction and to reach noteworthy productive levels which are also comparable to those provided in the most productive years, by traditional varieties of oilseed rape.

       In fact, grain yield was on average 2.33 and 2.44 t ha^-1 in the first and second year respectively. The only genotype to have provided a yield above 3 t ha^-1 in both years was 68-5702(B. carinata). However, in the second year this threshold was also exceeded by a group of three lines of B. carinata: 280230, 194252 and 274283 (Fig. 3).

       Independently of genotypes, seed oil content in the two years was found to be 38.5 and 37.2% (Fig. 4). In the first year, it was approximately 45% in the Mulchower, Gan You, Norin 16 (B. napus) and 181026 (B. juncea) lines. The latter of these showed the highest level of oil (46.3%) also in the second year, while the values in the other three lines ranged from 40.6% to 43.4%.

       Finally, since no substantial differences emerged within each line between the first and second year, the two-year mean values of the main fatty acids are reported in Table 2.

       The total amount of erucic acid (C22:1) was, on average, 33.6% of total fatty acid content.

       The genotypes with an erucic acid content around or above 40% were Norin 16 and 181026. However, the 68-5702 line, in virtue of its high yielding ability, provided the highest oil yield and an erucic acid yield second only to that of Norin 16.

Table 2 . Fatty acid composition (% of total ± SE, n=10) of the 20 Brassiceae lines (two-year average).

Fatty acid	C 16:0	C 18:0	C 18:1	C 18:2	C 18:3	C 20:1	C 22:1
Genotypes
Bn1	6.03±0.22	1.57±0.05	30.31±1.02	17.55±0.61	6.92±0.20	10.20±0.32	23.40±0.72
Bn2	5.61±0.12	1.14±0.08	20.51±0.71	15.45±0.60	7.12±0.27	9.00±0.38	36.30±0.89
Bn3	4.49±0.21	1.31±0.06	16.90±0.45	19.05±0.53	13.93±0.41	6.88±0.22	31.80±1.25
Bn4	4.01±0.23	1.37±0.03	19.39±0.47	14.98±0.40	8.30±0.17	10.35±0.41	36.10±1.08
Bn5	3.76±0.11	1.15±0.03	14.44±0.40	14.45±0.42	9.37±0.31	6.48±0.20	44.70±0.84
Bj1	3.61±0.10	1.16±0.07	12.40±0.33	18.64±0.31	12.92±0.28	4.40±0.37	39.80±1.38
Bj2	3.35±0.11	1.05±0.03	11.64±0.42	18.08±0.48	11.55±0.42	5.01±0.29	41.70±1.39
Bj3	4.22±0.09	1.52±0.06	22.78±0.57	24.71±0.59	11.52±0.51	9.04±0.47	21.00±0.40
Bj4	4.29±0.11	1.39±0.05	19.94±0.22	15.09±0.29	8.93±0.21	10.27±0.54	35.10±1.02
Bj5	3.49±0.07	1.42±0.05	22.38±0.59	24.08±0.12	11.94±0.32	10.07±0.47	21.40±0.72
Bj6	3.41±0.06	1.31±0.06	20.84±0.62	19.16±0.57	13.17±0.32	9.21±0.51	27.50±1.19
Bc1	6.18±0.10	1.49±0.07	13.09±0.38	23.13±0.48	10.91±0.28	5.38±0.22	33.50±1.00
Bc2	4.61±0.10	1.31±0.08	13.93±0.30	19.25±0.41	12.54±0.36	8.03±0.21	33.50±0.87
Bc3	4.09±0.08	1.14±0.03	11.06±0.19	21.00±0.43	10.30±0.31	6.69±0.13	38.80±1.02
Bc4	4.26±0.09	1.13±0.03	11.01±0.16	20.10±0.33	13.12±0.28	6.30±0.24	37.30±0.95
Bc5	4.25±0.09	1.18±0.05	14.98±0.32	17.00±0.65	13.79±0.47	7.16±0.33	35.70±1.17
Bc6	4.42±0.12	1.06±0.04	13.18±0.37	18.85±0.46	13.16±0.42	7.20±0.21	35.50±0.77
Bc7	5.88±0.08	1.75±0.09	16.51±0.27	24.91±0.39	12.00±0.42	5.06±0.15	27.30±0.77
Bc8	4.91±0.09	1.02±0.03	12.03±0.39	17.26±0.38	15.12±0.33	6.69±0.27	37.00±0.96
Bc9	4.31±0.09	1.06±0.03	15.39±0.45	18.00±0.70	14.00±0.37	7.12±0.26	34.20±1.23

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was funded by MURST.

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