The broccoli inflorescences were grown in arch-type greenhouses.
Forty-five days after sowing, the seedlings were transplanted
into eight-litre pots filled with commercial substrate of
Pinus bark base. Irrigation was performed daily through autocompensation
drippers with a flow of 2.0 L h1 with nutrient solutions
properly tailored to cultivate the plants in question. The treatments
consisted of distiled water and a 1.5 mM sodium selenate
solution and were labelled as inflorescences without selenium
(IS) and inflorescences with selenium (IC) (Ávila et al., 2013).
When the plants entered the floral period, 100 mL of the solution
was applied twice a week until the inflorescences were fully
formed