SEED DEVELOPMENT AND MATURATION IN FRENCH MARIGOLD (TAGETES PATULA L.)

Marigold (Tagetes spp) is an annual flower crop, mainly cultivated and propagated through seeds. It is essential to maintain the optimum seed quality to meet the desired standards in emerging seed industry at domestic and global seed trade. Indeterminate flowering in marigold leads to differential maturity of seeds resulting in wide differences in seed quality, major constraints in marigold seed production are optimum stage of physiological maturity and stage of seed harvest. Accordingly, a study was undertaken to identify the optimum stages of seed maturity in French types. The experimental results showed that, on-set of germination starts after 4-6 DFA in French types; and the quality seeds in French marigold can be obtained (harvested) between, and 38-40 DFA. Besides, total oil content in seeds estimated of about 35 % during physiological maturity and it was about 33% at harvest maturity; its content also varied with genotype as well as stage of seed maturity