STUDY OF THE GROWING SEASON OF SPECY MILLET PANICUM MILIACEUM L. CENTRAL SOUTH BULGARIA USING SAMPLES OF THE NATIONAL COLLECTION

Abstract

The survey was conducted in the experimental field of IPGR Sadovo. The aim of the study is to establish with the help of introduced material from the national collection millet what is the length of the growing season for this crop in the country and if there are possibilities for the needs of selection to offer materials with different length of vegetation.

There were studied 260 samples of national collection millet originating from 9 countries covering all intraspecific diversity. Samples were grouped at subspecies and according the colour of grain. It was found that this crop ripens in our average 58.88 days there as early ripening vegetation samples with less than 50 days and such ripening for more than 70 days. The variance analysis shows that the variability of the study sample is high but the variation is on the border between low and medium. The variance analysis of groups with different numbers of observations, there were samples grouped into subspecies and we found that the samples scattered panicle of P. m. ssp. Patentisimum Pop. stand out for precocity, low margin and low variation, while grouping by color grain variation is weak and no group that stands out.