Differential Growth in Purslane Species Grown in Two Different Seasons

With the growth of world population and climate changes, 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 different seasons in order to identify the most stable accession for better exploitation in breeding programs. The experiment was conducted in an entirely randomized design, with three replicates (three plants/accession), following the factorial scheme 2 seasons × 18 accessions, based on nine quantitative traits. The interaction between seasons and accessions was significant for the 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 the winter season. The accessions PU02 and PU10 presented major plant height and leaf measurements. The accessions PU04, PU03, PU07 and PU39 (P. umbraticola) presented greater number of leaves and showed stability between seasons, and, regarding morphological traits, they were superior to the P. oleracea species. They should be used in hybridization programs in order to insert desirable genes to produce new productive vegetable crops, providing new species options in order to replace conventional plants.