Morphological variation in Paspalum nicorae Parodi accessions, a promising forage

Abstract

Paspalum nicorae Parodi is a perennial, apomictic tetraploid forage species, native in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, with grazing tolerance and adapted to sandy soils and moderate droughts. As a first step to future breeding, a morphological characterization regarding leaf hairiness, sheath, leaf and central venation color, growing habit, plant height, raceme number and length, and leaf length and width was performed in 53 accessions from Rio Grande do Sul that are part of a Paspalum species breeding program. 35.84% of the accessions had completely hairy leaves, 73.58% had green sheath, 54.71% whitish central venation, 50.94% decumbent habit. Leaf color was estimated by two methods, color chart and colorimeter. The accessions were classified as 76.92% green, 13.45% greenish yellow and 9.62% as grayish green by the first, and 59.62% grayish, 32.69% grayish yellow, 5.77% yellow and 1.92% dark grayish by the second method. Raceme length ranged from 9.40 to 1.30 cm, number of racemes from one to six (48.73% of the accessions had four racemes), leaf length and width from 36.13 to 13.06 cm and 0.67 to 0.36 cm, respectively, and plant height from 115.70 to 29.00 cm. Therefore, a large morphological variation among accessions was detected, with no relation to geographical location but indicating a high potential use in plant breeding programs.