Genetic Variation of Morphological Traits of Iranian Annual Onobrychis crista-galli (L.) Lam. Genotypes

Iran is one of the most important genetic diversity sources of Onobrychis genus and the annual species Onobrychis crista-galli is a pasture plant that is distributed in western and southern regions of Iran. Twenty six genotypes of O. crista-galli were collected from different habitats. Their genetic variation was evaluated based on morphological characteristics in a randomized complete block design with three replications in the experimental field at Seed and Plant Improvement Institute, Karaj, Iran in 2010- 2011. Analysis of variance showed significant differences for all the studied traits indicating that there was genetic variation for the traits among the genotypes. For peduncle length, a high variation and for pod width, a low variation was found in quantitative traits. Using Shannon index in qualitative traits, plant hairiness and growth habit showed the highest and the lowest diversity respectively. The pod and seed weight showed positive and significant correlation with leaflet number per leaf and days to 50% flowering. Cluster analysis by Ward method divided all genotypes into four groups. The most differences, based on the most important morphological traits, were detected between groups 2 and 4. Based on the results of the present investigation, crossing between the individuals of these groups can provide a vast genetic variability which can be used in development of new high yielding lines and cultivars.