Characterization and evaluation of traditional and wild coriander in Alentejo (Portugal)

The goals of the present study, which was included in the PRODER project 18660 were: i) morphological characterization of 15 landraces (traditional cultivars) and 2 wild coriander accessions, harvested in Alentejo, compared to 2 commercial varieties; ii) agronomical evaluation of a selected group of accessions. For morphological characterization 15 plants per accession and 18 morphological descriptors were observed based on Diederichsen (1996); for the agronomical field trial, vegetative and seed biomass production were evaluated from 12 accessions submitted to 2 cut levels in 2 production cycles (spring and autumn). High morphological variability was observed for the studied landraces and wild accessions. The output of the multivariate statistical analysis (cluster analysis) allows splitting accessions into two groups: the wild accessions are separated from all cultivated accessions (landraces and commercial cultivars). Considering the division into 4 groups, group 1 - constituted by the accessions CS1, CS13, CS16 and CS26 - presented the most interesting characteristics for commercial purpose: higher biomass production, late flowering and high germination rate. In agronomical evaluation, the accession with higher potential of biomass leaf production was CS16, significantly higher than the Spanish commercial cultivar. The accessions with higher seed yield were CS32, CS1, CS5, and CS16, but not differing significantly from the Portuguese commercial cultivar.