Study on planting possibility of Dragon's head (Lallemantia iberica F. & C. M.) landraces in cold rainfed conditions

The Dragon's head(Lallemantia iberica F. & C. M.) can be introduced as a new oilseed crop to cold rainfed areas because of its unique characteristics. The field trial was carried in a split-plot factorial in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications in Dryland Agricultural Research Institute (DARI) in 2010-11. The treatments included three landraces of Dragon’s head as main plots and two seeding rates and three sowing dates as sub plots. The effect of landrace, sowing date, seed density and their interactions were significant on some studied traits. Grain yield had positive correlation with seed germination (0.72**), harvest index (0.39**), dry biomass (0.30*) and plant height (0.30*) and number of seeds per plant (0.56**). Based on path analysis, seed germination and plant height had the highest positive direct effect on grain yield; and accounted 75% of the yield variation. Kurdish-2 landrace at 400 seed m^-2 density produced the highest grain yield of 1235 kg ha^-1. It can be concluded that some Dragon’s head landraces (e.g, Kurdistan- 2) could be recommended as a new crops for autumn sowing in Maragheh and similar cold rainfed areas of the country.