Abstract
The seeds of red clover are heteromorphic and two color morphs can be visually recognized, light purple and yellow, resulting from heterozygosity and recessive homozygosity at two loci. Here, we report the responses of seed imbibition, seed germination, and early seedling growth of the two morphs to distilled water, sodium chloride, and complete nutrient solution. The sensitivityof red clover seeds to treatments increased with the stage of development in what seems to be a cumulative process. No differences were found in seed imbibition between morphs or between treatments. In seedling growth, on the contrary, treatments were always effective, but differences between morphs were only observed in seeds that were treated with nutrient solution, whereas in the intermediate stage of seed germination, the effects by treatments were observed together with the appearance of differences between morphs in distilled water and in the treatment by sodium chloride solution. Simultaneously, the superior performance of the yellow morph that was found in germination, which appears to be a trait stable across cultivars of red clover seeds, turned into a superior performance of the light purple morph in seedling growth.
Highlights
IntroductionRed clover has been the target of continuous efforts of breeding, especially in longevity, which primarily resulted in the increase from two to four years of its persistence in crop systems
Despite having lost much of the agricultural importance that it once had, mostly because of the widespread usage of synthetic fertilizers from the 1950s onwards [1], red clover (Trifolium pratense) is still widely used worldwide, especially in temperate zones [1,2].Red clover has been the target of continuous efforts of breeding, especially in longevity, which primarily resulted in the increase from two to four years of its persistence in crop systems
Treatments by the NaCl solution or by nutrient solution had no significant effects on the imbibition of seeds in comparison with distilled water either in light purple or in yellow morphs
Summary
Red clover has been the target of continuous efforts of breeding, especially in longevity, which primarily resulted in the increase from two to four years of its persistence in crop systems. The seeds of red clover are produced in a variety of colors, some of which are genetically controlled and others, brown ones, result from the ageing of seeds or from unfavorable conditions during production or storage [4,5,6,7]. Colors are located in the seed coat not in the endosperm or embryo, and the mother plant and not the seed is the unit for the inheritance of color [6,8].
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