Influence of Sowing Dates on Growth, Yield and Quality of Some Flax Genotypes (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Two field experiments were carried out at Sheikh Mohamed location which is far about 30 km west north Mosul city conducted during 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 winter seasons to study three genotypes performance of flax crop (Linum usitatissimum L.), three planting dates, and their interactions on some growth characters, yield and its components traits as well as oil yield. The main findings could be summarized as follows: The results showed that planting dates significantly affected in growth characters, yield and its component as well as oil yield in both seasons. The sowing of flax crop on the first November gave the highest number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per capsule, weight of thousand seed, seed, oil yield per hector. Sowing on the first November surpassed these sown on mid November in seed yield per hectare-1 by 20.32% and 20.67% as well as sown on mid October by 17.80% and 12.55% in the first and second seasons respectively. Flax crop genotypes significantly differed for all studied yield and its component in both seasons. The highest number of capsules per plant, weight of thousand seed, seed and oil yield per hectare-1 were produced from Strain genotype in both seasons. The results indicated that Strain genotype exceeded Belinka genotype by 12.88% and 15.59% and Hera genotype by 15.26% and18.86% in total seed yield per hectare-1 in the first and second seasons, respectively