Morphological characterization of Grass pea (<em>Lathyrus sativus L.</em>) Varieties

Abstract

Purpose: The maintenance of grass pea varieties and a comparative assessment of their biological characteristics, which will serve as a basis for future breeding work is required. The purpose of the study is to assess the biological potential of grass pea varieties in productivity and productivity components.Research Method: Both, above ground and root biomass of plants was analyzed at the beginning of flowering stage and at the technical maturity of seeds. The coefficient of earliness was determined. The statistical methods viz hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to group the genotypes by similarity. Relationships between the characteristics tested and their variability were established by correlation analysis.Findings: According to the coefficient of earliness the varieties studied were grouped as follows: LA5108- early variety; LAT4362 and BGE027129 - middle-early varieties, and LAT5038 and GE015741 - late varieties. Variety BGE027129 showed a high level of biological abilities on most of the characteristics. BGE025277 is distinguished with high productivity of seed weight (4.26 g/plant). BGE015741 was characterized by high both, number of nodules (25.27 nodules per plant) and weight of nodules (0.59 g per plant), the best specific nodulating ability (0.62) as well the highest seed weight productivity (5.52g/plant). The nodule weight was positive correlated with the plant weight (r = 0.517). High coefficient of inheritance in a broad sense was found for the root weight (99.24%) and root length (92.65%) at the technical maturity stage, for the seed weight (77.94%) and number of branches per plant (72.32%), root weight (59.67%) and root length (48.09%) in the flowering stage.Original Value: Grass pea varieties of breeding interest in regard to the both nodulating ability andseed productivity were shown.