Germplasm Evaluation Of Lathyrus Sativus

The forages play an important role in animal husbandry production, biologicaldiversity conservation, environment protection, soil improving and so on. Thegermplasm evaluation work should be executed to understand the good traits and getexcellent gene resources, which is the priority for breeding programme. Grasspea(Lathyrus sativus) is legume forage plant with drought resistant, flooding resistant,high nutrition value and can grow in poor soil with low-input and stable yield.Grasspea has high economic value which can be used as forage, green manure andfood-feed dual purpose crop。In this study, 50 accessions of grasspea obtained from International LivestockResearch Institute (ILRI) were observed respectively in China (Yuzhong Campus ofLanzhou University) and Ethiopia (Debre Zeit experimental Station of ILRI-ETH) toevaluate the yield traits including hay (DW), residual (RY) and seed yield (SY),number of reproductive shoots per plant (NS), number of pods per shoot (NPP),number of seeds per pod (NSP), 100 seed weight (HSW), days of 50% flowering aftersowing (DFAS), days of seed maturity after sowing (DSMAS) and harvest index (HI);and the nutritious traits of stems and leaves at both flowering stage and seed maturitystage by NIRS technology, and the parameters included DM, OM, CP, NDF, NDFD,TIVOMD and P were measured. Furthermore, multivariate analysis, path analysis,principle component and cluster analysis were applied to analyze all collected data tounderstand characters of grasspea germplasm and its interaction with environment,and to select some excellent materials which could be used as breeding materials fordifferent usage. The major results are as following:1. There were great variations in agronomic and nutritious traits of grasspea: forexample, the DW ranged from 144.67-732.67 Kg/ha in China and437.73-975.40 Kg/ha in Ethiopia; the CP ranged from 28.94%-35.27%, and26.62%-38.12% in Ethiopia.2. Genotype, environment and G×E affected the production traits greatly: DW, RY, SY, HSW, DFAS, DSMAS and HI were decided by environment (E＞G＞G×E),but for NS and NPP, the result was E＞G×E＞G; for the SPP, only genotypeaffected it significantly (p＜0.01), the result is G＞G×E＞E.3. The seed yield performed well in two locations, and the average seed yieldwere 822.93 and 959.25 Kg/ha in China and Ethiopia. The results of seed yieldcomponent analysis by Path analysis showed that RY and HI influenced seedyield directly, such as the direct correlation coefficiency between RY, HI andseed yield were 0.9474 and 0.8968 in China, and 0.806 and 1.057 in Ethiopia.4. The nutrition value of grasspea: The maximum of CP content at flowering stagewere 35.27% and 38.12% in China and in Ethiopia respectively; and themaximum of CP content at seed maturity stage was 21.48% and 15.67%;however, NDF content was high in grasspea, NDF content at flowering stagewere 32.96% and 29.38%, but they increased to 42.04% and 49.58%, whichindicates that low NDF is an breeding object.5. Based on the yield traits, we suggested that 5340, 5344 and 5280 could be usedas breeding materials for green manure and forage crop in China, 5321, 5332,5337 and 5380 in Ethiopia; 5404 for breeding food and feed-food crop in China,5337 in Ethiopia; 5404 and 5415 for breeding feed crop in China, 5325, 5326and 5329 in Ethiopia.6. Based on nutrition traits, we suggested that 5358, 5312, 5396 and 5339 atflowering stage could be used for breeding programme in China, 5325, 5363,5350 and 5354 in Ethiopia; and 5345and 5362 at maturity stage could be usedfor breeding programme in China, 5334 and 5344 in Ethiopia.7. Through analysis the two harvest stage of grasspea plants grown on twodifferent location, we developed the NIRS calibration equation of NDF, CP andTIVOMD, which could be used as standard analysis method in the futuregrasspea evaluation.8. We developed the comprehensive evaluation method for L. sativs L. bycombing Principle Component Analysis with Cluster analysis on yield andnutrious traits of grasspea. Present study was the first time to evaluate grasspea nutrition quality with NIRStechonology, and made a comprehensive evaluation on grasspea in China.