UMBEL POSITION ON THE MOTHER PLANT: "SEED" YIELD AND QUALITY OF SEVEN CULTIVARS OF FLORENCE FENNEL

In South Italy two experiments were conducted to study the position of umbels on the mother plant on seed and germination of seven cultivars of Florence fennel. Five umbel orders were classified and picked separately: primary umbel(PU), umbel of first, second, third and together all other orders (FO, SO, TO and OO). The trend of germination was evaluated 8 and 12 months after harvest with a 3-parameter of Weibull function.

In the first year the cultivar Di Mantova differed from the other cultivars for yield per plant, seed yield produced from the umbel of the FO and TO, the 1000 seed weight of the PU and FO; furthermore the seed showed the lowest germination and speed of germination. The contribute of the PU seed on the yield per plant was 5 g (12% of the yield per plant), while the greater part was given by OO (42%). The seed from PU had a lower germination (24%) than seed from OO germinated earlier respect to seed from PU and FO. In addition seed of the each order of 'Gigante di Bari' were sown on August and 45 days after the seedlings were pulled out and evaluated. Emergence for seed from PU was 6% vs. an average of 35 % for seed from other orders, but seedlings were larger.

In the second year cv. Tusco was replaced by 'Di Mantova'. The flowering of the PU was earlier in the cv. Sirio and later with 'Tusco'; this two cultivars showed the heaviest and lightest seed mass, respectively. The umbel of the OO produced 52% of the yield per plant with the lowest 1000 seed weight and germination percentage.

In both years the speed of germination 12 months after harvest was slower compared to that found after 6 months.