The aim of our experiment was to determine which cultivars of sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill. var. azoricum) are suitable for open field cultivation in Central Slovenia. We also wanted to compare hybrid versus open-pollinated cultivars in terms of crop yield and its quality. The experiment lasted from June 2016 until October 2016. It was conducted on the experimental field of the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. We used six open-pollinated cultivars ('Etrusco', 'Fedro', 'Fino', 'Marco', 'Romanesco', 'Romy') and two hybrid cultivars ('Bellotto F1' and 'Teseo F1'). Seedlings were grown in polystyrene seed trays and transplanted on the field covered with black polyethylene film in July 2016. Plant spacing was 40 x 25 cm. Experiment was designed in 5 replications, each replication had 10 plants. At harvest 5 typical plants were chosen from each replication. 8 parameters were tested: number of side shoots, whole plant weight, marketable pseudobulb weight, width, length and height of pseudobulb, stem length and total soluble solids. Cultivar 'Etrusco' was excluded from further experiment because there were not enough marketable plants remaining. We concluded that satisfactory yield quantity and quality of sweet fennel can be achived in open field cultivation in Central Slovenia. Furthermore we concluded that hybrid cultivars give better results as their yield was higher and of better quality than that of open-pollinated cultivars.
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