Differential Growth in Purslane Species Grown in Two Different Seasons

With the growth of world population, climate changes and the food safety will be a problem. Portulaca is a wild edible plant adapted to warm climate and resistant to drought. The aim of this work was to evaluate 18 accessions of Portulaca species under two agro-climatic conditions. The experiment was conducted in an entirely randomized design, with 3 replicates, following the factorial scheme 2 seasons x 18 accessions, based on nine quantitative traits the interaction between seasons and accessions was significant for number of leaves (p≤0.01). It is possible to observe that all the genotypes evaluated showed stability, except for the genotype PH01, which presented a smaller number of leaves in winter season. The accessions PU02 and PU10 presented major plant height and leaves measurements. The accessions PU11, PU03, PU07 and PG02 presented greater number of leaves and shows stability between seasons. These belong to P. umbraticola and P. grandiflora and were superior to the P. oleracea species. They should be used in hybridization program in order to insert desirable genes to produce new productive vegetable crop, being new species options in order to replace conventional plants.