Investigating Seed Yielding Ability and Its Related Traits of Alfalfa Genotypes (Medicago sativa)

Subject Areas : Journal of Crop Ecophysiology

P.  Hazeg Jafari ¹ (Former MSc. Student of Plant Breeding, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)
F.  Nourmand Moayed ² (Staff Member of East Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, Tabriz, Iran)
G.  Mohammadi ³ (Prof., Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran)
S.  Aharizad ⁴ (Associate prof., Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran)
P.  Behrouz ⁵ (Former MSc. Student of Plant Breeding, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)

Received: 2009-08-10 Accepted : 2011-05-02 Published : 2011-05-22

Keywords: genetic diversity, Seed yield, Medicago sativa L,

Abstract :

In order to study genetic diversity of traits seed yield, 49 alfalfa genotypes including foreign and Iranian germplasms in 2009, were evaluated in a simple lattice design (7*7) with two replications at the Natural Resources and Agricultural Research Center of East Azerbaijan, in Iran. Analysis of variance revealed significant genetic diversity among genotypes with respect to some of the traits. Seed yield correlated significantly with number of days to flowering, seeding period, biomass and harvest index. But, its correlation with number of days to complete flowering and the number of days to seed setting was significant and negative. Plant height, thousand seed weight and biomass were the most important contributors to seed yield. Direct effect of biomass and indirect effect of plant height through biomass on seed yield was high. Therefore, biomass could be used as effective criteria for selection of high yielding genotypes.