Development of meadow fescue late breeding material based on local populations
Kanapeckas, J.(Lithuanian Inst. of Agriculture, Akademija, Kedainio reg. (Lithuania))E-mail:[email protected]
Field trials with a view to studying local populations of meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis Huds.) were carried out at the Lithuanian Institute of Agriculture in Dotnuva in 2001-2002. Investigations of the earliness of wild local populations showed that meadow fescue, as a species, was very homogeneous in this respect. There was only a two-day difference between the earliest and latest heading dates of the populations. The greatest difference in earliness of individual plants within the population was only 6 days. Early-heading plants dominated (65.25%). Late plants accounted for as little as 0.92%. The presence of late plants in wild populations enables to consider possibility to select late meadow fescue breeding material. The correlation between earliness and herbage yield of the first cut, as well as between earliness and number of floral shoots, the abundance of which determines the yield of first cut, was negative. All this encumbers development of late and productive varieties of meadow fescue.
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