Effects of plant density on growth, yield and seed quality of quinoa genotypes under rain-fed conditions on red basalt soil regions

Abstract

Because of rainfall shortage, quinoa has the potential to supersede traditional crops that contribute to agricultural production less effectively. The current study determined the quinoa genotypes and plant density suitable for production under rain-fed conditions in red basalt soil regions. The experiments were conducted in the rainy and dry seasons of 2018/2019 using split-plot designs with three replications. In these, the main factor consisted of four quinoa genotypes and the subfactor four plant densities (13.3, 10.0, 8.0 and 6.6 plants m-2) with a row interval of 50cm and a plant interval of 15, 20, 25 and 30cm, respectively. The current study’s results showed that plant density significantly affected polynomial trends on panicle length, panicle number/plant, seed number/panicle, 1000-seed weight, seed yield, protein content, and ash content. The plant density of 8.0 plants m-2 seems to be the optimal density for quinoa under the studied conditions. Results here also indicate significant differences among quinoa genotypes for agronomical and seed quality performance. Better performances of quinoa occurred in the dry season compared to the rainy season. Atlas and Cahuil were the best adaptive quinoa genotypes in the red basalt soil regions