Breeding for disease resistance, forage, and seed production in Lotononis bainesii Baker

摘要

Abstract In 1999, INIA Uruguay initiated a plant breeding program on Lotononis bainesii Baker, a subtropical forage legume from Southern Africa. Seeds from nine different geographical origins were grown and subsequently hand‐crossed. Ninety crosses were generated and their variability was used to improve disease resistance, and forage and seed yield. Fusarium oxysporum, a fungal pathogen responsible for crown and stolon rot, is common in Uruguayan soils and the only public cultivar available is reported to be susceptible to this pathogen. In winter 2001, a seedling screening method was used that allowed seeds to grow in Petri plates in the presence of the fungus. The resistant plants of each of the 90 crosses were transplanted into trays in a naturally lit glasshouse and subsequently divided into three sets with equal representation. Two of them were transplanted as spaced plant nurseries into each of two sites with distinct soil types in the basaltic region of Uruguay. The third set was transplanted into...