Planting possibilities of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) seed

Basil is known as one of the pharmaceutical plant and as a culinary herb that has it's own aromatic smell, grows and produces its own seed within one year. Origins of basil come from Iran, South Asia and especcially İndia. However, most commonly it is distributed in France, Italy and Spain despite the fact that Mediterranean climate and warm climate regions are more avaible for the plants organic cultivation. As the seed of Basil are very small and it makes impossible to seed with the sensitive sowing machine. Moreover, as seed's kilogram price is very high, this makes it impossible for broadcast seeding. In our country cultivation of basil can be seen as a hobby, people grow basil in little flower pot, and trading of the herb is also made by agricultural areas in the fields. As it reserves countless effective features in itself and it is used for various areas it gains too much importance for the country thus the cultivation can be seen in wide agricultural areas. In this study, basil seeds are pelleted for making it avaible for mechanical cultivation. For making the process easy and useful for wide areas. For this reason basil herbs are pelleted with the most suitable mixture and determination of physico-mechanical properties of the seeds. In the study plant seeding is done for testifier. For this reason growing of seedlings in greenhouse, planting of them and percentage of the success are analyzed. The process is concluded when the pelleted seedlings which are cultivated by machinery and basils which are planting as seeds have came at the same height after 70 days. It is realized that the pelleted seedlings with machine planting is more advantage than the seed planting for cultivation of basil. Keywords: Basil, covered seed, pelleted seed, physico-mechanical properties, machinery cultivation, plant seedlings.