- Turnip is a biennial or annual crop originating from Central and Southern Europe and Afghanistan. It has perfect, yellow flowers and produces siliqua fruit tipped with a seedless beak. - Turnip is a long day crop that produces seeds in the spring. It requires cool or moderate climates with 700-1000mm of rainfall annually. Seed is usually produced using the root-to-seed or seed-to-seed method. - In seed production, roguing is important to select only true-to-type plants. Spacing and isolation distances depend on the variety and production method. Harvesting occurs when pods turn reddish-brown and seeds are threshed and dried before storage.

1. WELCOME
&
NAMESTE

2. Presentation on
Seed Production of
Turnip

3. • Turnip(Brassica campestris L. var. rapifera Mertz)
belongs to family cruciferae and having chromosome
number 2n=20 .
• Origin: Central and Southern Europe possibly the
Mediterranean region for European types. Other
primary centre of origin is Afganistan with adjoining
areas of Pakistan.

4. Floral biology
• Inflorescence is racemose. It is a typical raceme on the
main stem. The flowers are attached with short pedicel.
• Flowers are complete and perfect, small, pale yellow in
large terminate andor axillary panicle.
• Sepals are 5 in number and erect.
• Petals are 5, persistent, pale yellow coloured dand clawed.
• Stamens are 5. Ovary superior, 3 celled with large lobed
disc at the base. Style 3, distinct and united with capitate
stigma.
• Fruit is siliqua and tipped usually seedless beak.
• Seed is round, black or reddish-brown in colour and contain
oil. Average 100 seed weight is o.4 gm.

5. Breedingbehaviour
• Turnip is a long day crop and produce seeds with the
advent of spring.
• Turnip bear hermaphrodite flowers but varying levels of
cross-fertilization takes place due to protogyny and high
foraging of insects for nectars.
• Cross pollination is generally done by honey bees, wild
honey bees, bumble bees and blow flies.
• Anthesis starts in the morning at about 7.30 a.m. and
continues up to 11.00 a.m. depending on the prevailing
weather conditions.
• Anthers dehiscence coincides with the anthesis.
• The stigma becomes receptive 2-3 days after anthesis.

6. Climaterequirement
• Turnip is best adopted to cool or moderate
climate where rainfall averages 700 to 1000 mm.
• It require two seasons to produce seed.
• Excessive heat during flowering interferes with
the reproductive process and flowering.
• Turnip have two distinct races ie. Biennial
temperate and annual Asiatic.
• Farmers produces seed only in temperate regions
and later seed can be sown both hill and plain
regions.

7. Spacing
For root production
• Tropical type: 30-45 cm x 10-15 cm
• Temperate type: 30 cm x 8-10 cm
Replantingof root for seed production:
• Tropical type: 60 cm x 30 cm
• Temperate type: 45cm x 3o cm
Isolationrequirements
Turnips is cross pollinated by insect. Seed field should be
isolated from field of other varieties, field of same varieties
and others cruciferous crops like cabbage, rap, mustard,
rutabaga etc.
• Foundation Seed: 1600 m
• Certified Seed: 1000 m

8. Varieties
• Purple- Top
• Kathmandu Red
• Khumal White
• Pusa Chandrima
• Pusa Swarnima
• Turnip L-1
• Pusa Sweti
• Pusa Kanchan
• White Globe
• Golden Ball
• Snowball
• Early Milan Red Top

9. Manures and Fertilizers
• FYM @ 10 to 15 tha. A general fertilizer dose of 120
kg N, 80 kg P2O5 and 80 kg K2O per hectare.Two foliar
sprays of o.3% borax after 25, 40 days after sowing is
beneficial for enhancing root growth and seed yield.

10. Roguing
In root-to-seed method of seed production roguing should be
done in both the years rigorously.
Firstyear
• In order to detect and eliminate different plant types,
roguing should be started before the roots are harvested in
root-to-seed method of seed production on the basis of top
and leaf characters.
• After the roots are harvested they may carefully be rogued
for colour and off types, under ad over sized roots and any
other character which do not conform to the varietal type.

11. Second year
• Only selected true to type roots are planted for seed
production and subsequent roguings for off types and
other crop plants may be done at the bloom stage.
• Roguing should preferably be done on the over all
performance based on important descriptors(Srivastava et
al., 2001) viz, early plant vigour (poor, medium, good,),
• Leaf colour (yellowish-green, light green, green, dark
green, purple, purple green),
• Leaf margin (entire, crenate, dentate, serrate, undulate,
doubly dentate),

12. • Leaf apex shape (acute, oval, round, broadly round),
• Petiole colour (white, yellow, light green, green,
pink, red, purple),
• Root skin colour (white, creamy white, pink, red,
purple),
• Root shape (triangular, cylindrical, elliptic, spheric,
transverse elliptic, inverse triangle, apically bulbous,
horn shaped, branched),
• Root tail (acute, obtuse, convex, plain, concave).

13. Seed Rate
• About 4-6 kg seed is required per hectare of land.
Method of Seed Production
• Both seed-to-seed and root-to-seed methods are employed
for turnip seed production. Seed-to-seed method is
preferred for raising certified seed. The nucleus seed,
however, is invariably produced by root to seed method.

14. Root-to-Seed Method
• In root-to-seed in autumn when the roots are, fully mature (before
pith development), the crop is harvested, true-to-type roots are
selected and after giving proper root and shoot cuts they are
transplanted in a well prepared field.
• Generally 12 root cut and 23 rd shoot cut is given to get optimum
yield.
• The selection and roguing are done on the basis of foliage characters,
root characters (shape, size, colour, flesh colours, pungency, etc.)
• Small, deformed, diseased and other undesirable roots are discarded.
• Hairy, Early or late bolters are also removed.
• Generally the stecklings are replanted at a spacing of 60 x 30 cm for
Asiatic varieties.
• The field prepared for steckling planting should be fertilized with 25
kg nitrogen and 25 kg potash per hectare.
• Irrigation is given after replanting of stecklings.

15. Seed-to-SeedMethod
• In this method the crop is allowed to over-winter
in the field and produce seed in the following
spring in their original position. The tropical
turnip crop is sown during early October in the
plain and the temperate turnip is sown in mid
September to mid October in the hill condition in
a well prepared land.
• The crop is allowed to grow and produce seed at
their original position (in situ). Rigorous roguing
should be used to raise seed-to-seed crop.

16. Harvesting, threshing and storage
• The crop is cut when plants are fully mature and the pods
become reddish brown. Harvesting before this stage gives
shriveled seeds and a late harvest results in shattering.
• Harvesting is done by sickle and the seed stalks are cut near
base of crown preferably in the early morning.
• Plants are cut when most of the pods are brown.
• The crop is cut by sickle and brought to the threshing floor
for thoroughly drying.
• The drier the pods, the more easily will they break open
during threshing process.
• Threshing can be done by beating with sticks.
• The seed after sifting should be dried to 6-8 percent
moisture content before storage.

17. Seed standard
Factors Standers for each class
Foundation Certified
Pure seed (min) 98% 98%
Inert matter (max) 2% 2%
Other crop seed (max) 5% 10%
Weed seed (max) 5% 10%
Germination (min) 70% 70%
Moisture (max) 6% 6%

18. Specific requirement

19. SeedYield
• The average seed yield varies from 600 to 800 kg per
hectare.

20. Thank you