PLANT ARCHITECTURE AND BIOMASS PARTITIONING VARIATION AS AFFECTED BY PLANT DENSITY IN CYNARA CARDUNCULUS L. VAR. SYLVESTRIS LAM.

Recently, different studies on wild cardoon about biomass productions for different crop utilization were carried out. Results showed the potential of this widespread crop to be suitable to different biomass application, such as lignocellulosic biomass for energy, seed for oil and protein production and roots for inulin extraction. Considering these remarkable results, the agronomic research, in order to maximize the different parts of the plant production in relation to double (aboveground biomass-grain) and triple applications (aboveground biomass-grain-root), was carried out. In this work we report the data concerning the plant architecture and biomass partitioning variation in relation to plant density. This research was conducted at Catania (Sicily) during 2002-03. One wild cardoon genotype was grown at four different plant densities (1, 2, 4 and 8 plant m^-2). The adopted experimental design was randomized block with three replications. The crop was grown under low inputs management. The harvest of the biomass was on July, 30. At harvest on a large number of plants were determined the number of heads and their partitioning, the fresh total biomass weight, roots, stalks, leaves and capitula fresh weight. Achenes were obtained trashing the capitulum. In laboratory dry matter content of each part of the plant was calculated. Results showed the different plant density influenced the architecture of the plant and its biomass partitioning. The branch number of 1^st and 2^nd order ranged from 3.6 (8 plant m^-2) to 6.3 (1 plant m^-2) and from 0 (8 plant m^-2) to 6.0 (1 plant m^-2), respectively. Root incidence resulted 43% of total biomass at 8 plant m^-2 and 37% of total biomass at 1 plant m^-2. By contrast, aboveground biomass incidence was higher at the density of 1 plant m^-2 (38% of total biomass). These results give information concerning plant architecture and the biomass partitioning useful to grow this crop.