Foliar and seed application of salicylic acid and kinetin impacts of the seed yield, oil content and fatty acid composition of safflower (<i>Carthamus tinctorius</i> L.)

Abstract Plant growth regulators (PGRs) play important roles in seedling growth, yield, growth, and other parameters in plants. These PGRs include kinetin (K) and salicylic acid (SA). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of PGRs (K and SA) and their different application methods (foliar spray and seed priming) on safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius L.) in field conditions. The present study was conducted in both 2022 and 2023 years as four independent experiments (seed priming with K, foliar application with K, seed priming with SA, foliar application with SA). In the study, four different doses of K (0, 50, 75, and 100 mg L −1 ) and SA (0, 50, 75, and 100 mg L −1 ) were used. The experiments were conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications. In this study, days to emergence, plant height, branch number, head number, number of seeds per head, head diameter, 1000‐seed weight, seed yield, oil content, oil yield, and fatty acid composition parameters were investigated. The study's findings indicate that the PGR applications had a significantly improved seed yield, oil content, oil yield, and the examined fatty acids. The oleic acid content, which is a very important parameter for oilseed crops, was positively affected by seed priming with kinetin. In this study, all applications were compared with each other, and it was concluded that seed priming was more effective than the foliar application method. In addition, it was observed that salicylic acid improved the analyzed characters more positively than kinetin.