Impacts of recurrent selection and synthetic population on forage and seed yields of monocut Egyptian clover (trifolium alexandrinum L.)‎

Abstract EN

The objectives of the current investigation were to determine the response of forage and seed yields and their components in monocut Egyptian clover to two methods of breeding, namely recurrent selection and synthetic population approach.

one cycle of recurrent selection among superior accessions was imposed on a base population.

both yields were compared to the base population and a commercial cultivar (c.v.

fahl).

in addition, first generation of a synthetic population created by compositing six superior accessions was compared to the commercial cultivar and their parents.

the realized gains of the recurrent selections were 18.6, 11.7, 14.6 and 24.1% for leaf/stem ratio, fresh, dry and forage protein yields, respectively, over the base population.

moreover, the realized gains were 14.4, 19.2, 13.1 and 16.9% for number of inflorescences/plant, number of seeds/inflorescence, seed yield and 1000-seed weight, respectively, over the base population.

the first generation of the synthetic population showed increases over parental means of 3.5, 3.0, 4.9 and 3.8% for leaf/stem ratio, fresh, dry, and forage protein yields, respectively.

similarly, the realized gains were 5.0, 5.3, 3.1 and 4.3% for number of inflorescences/plant, number of seeds/inflorescence, seed yield and 1000 seed weight, respectively, over to the check cultivar (c.v.

Fahl).