ABSTRACT
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a promising culture to be widespread in Brazil. However, the lack of basic knowledge about cultivation techniques, such as water demand by the culture, is still obstacle to the expansion of safflower in that country. The objective was, then, to evaluate the effect of the soil water availability on growth and development of safflower in the Cerrado soil of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, in a completely randomized design with five water availabilities (25%, 50%, 75%, 100% and 125% of the maximum water holding capacity in the soil) and four replications. Maintenance soil moisture was performed by gravimetric method with daily weighing of experimental units. The variables analyzed were: plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, number of heads, heads diameter, dry mass of shoots, heads, and roots. The results were submitted to analysis of variance and regression test at 5% probability by SISVAR program. All variables set to the quadratic regression model, showing the best results in the water availability between 64% and 76%. Safflower is shown to be more sensitive to water stress with increased tolerance to water deficit in the soil than to flooding.