Heterogeneity of carrot seeds depending on their position on the mother plant

The period of vegetation and flowering of carrot usually is very long, and the flowers are formed in different parts of the mother plants. This leads to the formation of seeds with different qualities. Often heterogeneity is of a maternal type, which depends on the position of the umbels on the mother plants. The main goal of the present study was to investigate the quality differences in carrot seeds from different parts of the mother plant. The seedstalks from ‘Nantski’, a typical Bulgarian cultivar, were grown by the conventional method for seed production technology. In botanical maturity the seeds from the primary, secondary and tertiary umbels were extracted separately. The seed yield from umbels, dry weight of the seeds, seed size, length, width and thickness, weight per seed, 1000 seed weight, germination energy (first count), germination capacity (final count), mean germination time, uniformity of germination, fresh weight of seedlings, length of radicle, length of hypocotyls and vigour indexes were investigated. The contents of raw protein, sugar, lipids and the basic calorific values were also analysed. The germination was the highest for the seeds from primary umbels, followed by the ones from secondary umbels and lowest for those from the tertiary umbels. The difference between the highest and the lowest value was 6.30%. These results suggest that it is better to harvest the carrot seeds depending on their position on the plant and divide them into separate lots with different qualities.