STUDY OF BIRDSFOOT TREFOIL (LOTUS CORNICULATUS L.) GERMPLASM REPRODUCTIVE ASPECTS

I.T. Breazu

Grassland Research Institute, Cucului Str. 5, 2200-Brasov, ROMANIA

The objective of this research was to study the vegetative and reproductive development of birdsfoot trefoil germplasm seed yield components, and seed crop.  Every accession was examined for morphological and phenological characters such as plant habit, flowering period, number of inflorescences per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, thousand seed weight, calculated (potential) and harvested (actual) seed yield per plant.  All characters examined were rather variable: number of inflorescences per plant (63 - 309); number of pods per plant (820 - 7474); number of seeds per pods (4 - 23); 1000 - seed weight (0.84 - 1.72 g), and seed calculated (5.8 - 243.3 g), and seed harvested per plant (1.7 - 46.1 g).  Their high variation made the studied ecotypes and varieties valuable plant material for breeding programs.

Keywords: germplasm Lotus corniculatus L. calculated seed yield; harvested seed yield; seed quality; seed yield components.