Assessment of phenotypic diversity of local grass pea (Lathyrus sp. L.) accessions based on economically important agricultural traits

Abstract

The success of any crop improvement program essentially depends on the nature and magnitude of genetic diversity. Although grass pea is environment-friendly grain legumes, important for food security and animal feeding, the genetic potential of this crop have been neglected for a long. The paper deals with the study of phenotypic diversity of grass pea accessions with local origin, included in IPGR’s collections regarding economically important agricultural traits. The traits evaluation was performed according to Lathyrus sativus International Descriptors. The degree of traits variability was expressed by the coefficient of variation. Cluster and principal component analyses were applied to assemble the accessions in distinct groups. The coefficient of variation for all studied grass pea traits fluctuated between 6.29% and 16.83%. Middle variability was characteristic for six traits. Based on economically important traits the grass pea accessions were grouped in two different clusters. Two grass pea accessions (BGR4836 and BGR4831) were selected having tall plants, big number of pods and grains per plant, high yield per plant, high biological yield and harvest index. The BGR4847 accession had high biological yield, high harvest index, high 100 grains mass and big number of grains per pod. The BGR 4334 genotype was significantly different from other genotypes. The results of the conduct analyses helped to select accessions for further investigations.