Association of aluminium tolerance with morphological traits in lucerne (Medicago sativa L.)

摘要

The experiment was carried out at the Lithuanian Institute of Agriculture under greenhouseconditions in spring-summer 2008. The experimental material consisted of 37 accessionsof M. sativa subspecies differing by aluminium tolerance, and three Lithuanian cultivars(Auguné II', 'Birute and 'Zydrune). A statistically significant variation among the accessionswas apparent for all the nine morphological traits studied (P < 0.05). These traits were plantrankness, amount of leaves, height, stem density, stem thickness, stem position, leaflet size,chlorophyll concentration, seed yield. The number of accessions that statistically significant-ly exceeded all Lithuanian cultivars varied from 1 to 20 out of 37 accessions, depending ontrait. Accession 'PI 573140' was superior by the values of seven traits from those nine studied.Accession 'PI 419506' exceeded Lithuanian cultivars by values of five traits, and six accessionsCPI 573135; 'PI 502485; 'PI 499547; `PI 310338; 'PI 452444' and 'PI 478550') were superior byvalues of four traits. The paired regression analysis revealed that tolerance to Al in lucerne accessions was notstatistically significantly negatively related with morphological traits. Al tolerance positivelysignificantly (P < 0.05) correlated with height and seed yield, r = 0.353 and r = 0.339, respec-tively. Some positive tendency was observed in the case of rankness (r = 0.207), stem thickness(r = 0.211) and stem position (r = 0.307). A negative tendency was observed for the amount ofleaves (r = -0.239).