Evaluation of variations of agro-morphological traits in landrace lentil populations of Zanjan province and selection of superior genotypes in rainfed conditions

The diversity of the genetic traits material is the basis of any breeding program and the existence of maximum variation is the greatest chance for success in the selection, especially in variable climatic such as rainfed conditions. Regarding the importance of lentil genetic resources for use in breeding programs of this plant, this experiment was conducted to investigate the diversity of important agronomic traits and selection of native lentil plants in dryland fields of Zanjan province.

For this purpose, 1040 plants of lentil from fields in five regions (including Khorramdareh, Khodabandeh, Ijrood, Mahneshan,and Zanjan (Armaghankhaneh) of Zanjan province were collected in the rainfed conditions at 2014-2015 cropping season. Plants were evaluated in terms of yield and morphological traits including plant height, height of the first branch from the ground, height of the lowest pod of the ground, number of pods, number of hollow pods, number of full pods, number of seeds, 1000-seed weight, seed weight, straw weight and biomass. To compare the populations of lentils, analysis of variance was performed in a completely unbalanced randomized design and populations were grouped by cluster analysis by Ward method. In order to select the best genotypes in each population, considering breeding goals, traits were sorted by degree of importance and superior genotypes were determined in each population.

The results of descriptive statistics indicated a high variation among studied traits, especially number of hollow pods (117.98 %) and seed weight (55.82 %) Also for height of first branch, number of pods, number of seeds and seed and straw weight great variations were observed. Therefore, the selection for these traits in evaluated populations seems to be effective. The lowest coefficient of variation was related to plant height (10.79 %), first pod height (18.83 %) and 1000-seed weight (25.90 %). Analysis of variance results showed that there were significant differences between them in terms of all measured traits at 0.01 level. Ejroud population had the highest mean for most of the traits evaluated. Cluster analysis categorized these populations into three groups. The Armaghankhaneh and Ejroud populations were each grouped separately, and the three populations of Khoramdareh, Khodabandeh and Mahneshan formed the third group. Ejroud population had the highest percentage of deviation from the total mean for yield traits and also morphological traits that are important for mechanized harvesting. Finally, 492 superior genotypes were selected for study in rainfed conditions based on experimental design for yield traits and effective traits in mechanized harvesting.

There were suitable variations within and between the lentil populations in terms of agro-morphological traits. Cluster analysis also categorized these populations into three groups. Because of the difference in plants in different regions due to the genetic variation of the plants, as well as the impact of the climate and their different growth environment, therefore, for selection of superior genotypes, evaluation and selection were carried out separately in the regions. Since lentils are self-pollinated and cleistogam and have high rate of elf-pollination (99%), so the populations of the lentils are homozygous so the seeds of selected genotypes are pure lineage and the method of this study was selection of pure lines. Pure lines from selected genotypes can be used in breeding programs.