Seed Production and Plant Characterization of Sicilian Landraces of Broccoli

Broccoli seems to have been domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean areawhere it began the process of domestication that has given rise to current types andlandraces of which many are today grown in south Italy and in Sicily.We characterised ten landraces of broccoli grown in several areas of Sicilyutilising the principal IBPGR descriptor used for this crop and we registered theirseed production. Six heads of each landraces, harvested at commercial ripening stage,were collected to detect some characters such as the fresh weight, longitudinal andtransverse size, stem diameter, grain size, colour, angle of curvature and the chromaticparameters (CIE L* a* b*) of the main head. With regard to seed production weregistered seed yield for each landraces at seed physiological maturity. The landracesshowed significant differences especially for some characters, such as fresh weight,height, maximum diameter, angle of curvature, chromatic parameters a* and b* ofthe main head. Seed production showed a significant variance among the landracesstudied and varied from 3.4 to 20.1 q ha-1.