Collection and evaluation of tropical legume germplasm.
1988
Kraft R.S.
The family leguminosae comprises 3 subfamilies, 17,000 species, mainly of tropical origin. Only a very small number of these species are available as germplasm. Collecting the genetic resources of tropical nongrain legumes has only a 40-yr-old tradition. The major collections are held by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia; the Centre Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Columbia; and the International Livestock Centro for Africa (ILCA), Ethiopia. They were assembled with the objective of providing a broad genetic base for forage legume cultivar development. To date, no collecting mission aimed specifically at tropical legumes for green manure and green leaf manure has been carried out. Programs to evaluate tropical legume germplasm are aimed to developing cultivars for forage; they focus on plant characteristics related to legume persistence and forage quality. A three-stage program for agronomic evaluation is briefly discussed and a list of legume species well-adapted to the acid, low-fertility soil of subhumid and humid tropical America is presented. A program to build and evaluate a gene pool of tropical legumes for green manure is proposed.
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