COMPARATIVE BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WINTER VETCH VARIETIES
VALENTIN KOSEV AND VILIANA VASILEVA*
Institute of Forage Crops,
89 “General Vladimir Vazov” Str., 5800 Pleven, Bulgaria
*(e-mail : viliana.vasileva@gmail.com)
(Received : 30 August 2018; Accepted : 25 September 2018)
SUMMARY
The creation of varieties which to a bigger extent realize their biological capabilities in a wide range of environments is considered as an important task for the breeding of vetches. In this study winter vetch varieties of different origin have been tested on basic quantitative signs and indicators in a three year field experiment. Both, aboveground and root biomass of plants were analyzed. The hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to group the genotypes by similarity. Relationships between the signs tested were found after correlation analyses. A significant variability was found of nodule weight per plant (110.39%), aboveground mass fresh weight/root mass fresh weight ratio (74.67%), number of nodules per plant (66.56%), fresh stem weight (59.45%) and fresh root weight (58.38%). The stem length (9.14%) and root length (11.58%) are characterized by a higher stability. High coefficient of inheritance was obtained for the plant height (65.2%), nodule number per plant (33.37%) and root length (28.59%) signs. However, for the purposes of selection the BGE004222, BGE000643 and BGE001383 varieties could be used as parental forms for the creation of genotypes with an increased both number and weight of nodules per plant.
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