Screening and Selection of One Hundred Flax (Linum usitatissimum) Accessions for Yield Production

Abstract

Flax is cultured for fiber and oil production around the world. The demand for flax is increasing in industries each year. In order to screening and selection of 86 accessions from five subspecies along with 19 unknown accessions, the seeds of the accessions were cultured in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The experiment took two years in Karaj, Iran. ANOVA results showed that the accessions and their interaction with year had significant effects on the measured traits (P < .05 or 0.01). Our results showed a substantial level of diversity among the accessions with respect to the measured traits. Based on correlation analysis, there were positive and significant relationships between seed yield (SY) and number of basal branches (NBB), capsules per main branch (CMB), number of capsules and seeds per plant (CP and NSP). Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the predicting model explained 99% of flax yield variation in which the CP, NSP, and TSW were effective traits in describing the variation. Cluster analysis categorized the 100 accessions into seven clusters. Our results suggested that accessions ‘19ʹ and ‘35ʹ from the first and the third clusters could be cultivated as promising genotypes for SY and fiber production, respectively.

Keywords

• flax
• seed yield
• fiber production
• screening
• linear regression
• cluster analysis