105(1)_str4

ISSN 1392-3196 / e-ISSN 2335-8947
Zemdirbyste-Agriculture, vol. 105, No. 1 (2018), p. 27–32
DOI  10.13080/z-a.2018.105.004

Evaluation of the old Lithuanian flax cultivars included in the list of Lithuanian Traditional Crafts

Zofija JANKAUSKIENĖ

Abstract

The old Lithuanian fibre flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) cultivars ‘Kondratavičiaus’, ‘Dotnuvos ilgūnėliai I’, ‘Dotnuvos ilgūnėliai II’, and ‘Vaižgantas’, developed before World War II have been included in the list of Lithuanian Traditional Crafts. The seed accessions of these cultivars, obtained from various gene banks, were tested at the Upytė Experimental Station of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in 2013–2015. The accessions of each cultivar were compared among themselves and with a modern fibre flax cultivar ‘Kastyčiai’ used as a standard. Due to the small quantity of available seed, the experimental plots 1 m² in size were sown manually in three replications. Flea-beetles were controlled by insecticides and weeds by the herbicide Glean (a.i. 750 g kg^-1 chlorsulfuron in the form of a water dispersible granule). Flax was harvested at an early yellow ripening stage. Phenological phases, plant height, flower colour, stem, seed and long fibre yield, fibre content and quality (flexibility, strength and quality number), duration of vegetation period, resistance to lodging were investigated. The study showed the modern fibre flax cultivar ‘Kastyčiai’ to be superior to the old fibre flax accessions in terms of stem and long fibre yield and plant height. However, the old flax cultivars showed a better performance in terms of seed yield, duration of vegetation period as well as fibre quality parameters (particularly fibre flexibility) than the standard ‘Kastyčiai’. The study showed that the accessions bearing the same cultivar name differed in the characteristics tested.

Key words: cultivars, fibre content, fibre flax, fibre flexibility, yield.

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