OIL CONTENT OF SUNFLOWER GRAINS ACCORDING TO ROW SPACING AND PLANT DENSITY.

Sunflower is a major oil crop which produces edible oil with a great importance in human nutrition. The oil content of the sunflower grains is determined genetically but it is influenced by several environmental and technological factors. The technological factors can be controlled by the farmers in view to get higher oil content in the grains, and therefore their influence is important to be known. Starting from this idea, the aim of this paper is to identify the effect of row spacing and plant density on the oil content of the sunflower grains under specific growing conditions of Romania. Research was performed in 2019, 2020, and 2021 in field experiments under rainfed conditions located in four locations, among which one in East Romania, one in South-East Romania and two in South Romania. The experimental factors were the following: Factor A - row spacing, with 3 graduations: a1 = 70 cm; a2 = 60 cm; a3 = 50 cm; Factor B - plant density, with 3 graduations: b1 = 50,000 plants/ha; b2 = 60,000 plants/ha; b3 = 70,000 plants/ha. The obtained data in the specific growing conditions of Romania showed that row spacing and plant density have a small influence on the oil content of the sunflower seeds. Among the two technological parameters, row spacing determined the smallest influence on oil content of the sunflower grains. Increasing of plant densities determined a slight decreasing of the oil content of the sunflower grains. The differences in oil content determined by the row spacing and plant density are not statistically significant in conditions of good water supply of sunflower plants, especially in the period of grain development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]