VARIABILITY AND CORRELATION OF QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERS OF THE SUDAN GRASS

Abstract

The correlation between the traits allows making an indirect selection, while the selection according to one trait results in the selection of another indicator. The purpose of the work is to estimate the variability of quantitative traits of Sudan grass and the correlations between them, to identify marker traits of high productivity and quality of green mass. There have been presented the study results of 115 collection samples of Sudan grass with various environmental and geographical origin of the Rostov region made in 2014-2018. There was a great variability (V=29.7-50.0%) in tillering, leaf square, green mass yield, stem diameter, plant height among the studied varieties. The percentage of fiber and nitrogen-free extractive substances in the green mass of the studied Sudanese grass samples were characterized with high stability (V = 4.9-5.0%). The analysis has identified a strong correlation between green mass productivity and leaf length (r=0.59±0.01), leaf width (r=0.57±0.02), leaf square (r=0.54±0.03), plant height (r=0.48±0.06), length of ‘vegetation-ear formation’ period (r=0.48±0.004) and number of leaves (r=0.42±0.03). There has been identified a group of samples ‘Boldinsky’, ‘Fioros’, ‘К-176’, ‘К-205, ‘К-272’ with 35-55 t/ha green mass productivity and with 20.5-24.5% dry matter in green mass. The conducted analysis has shown that dry matter percentage greatly correlates with plant height (r=0.30±0.001), vegetation period (r=0.34±0.004) and number of leaves (r=0.26±0.006). The markers of high productivity and quality of green mass are length of a vegetation period and number of leaves (their increase results in the growth of green mass yields), dry matter percentage in green mass and protein decrease in it.