Premium
Comparison of Trifoliolate and Multifoliolate Phenotypes of Alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) 1
Author(s) -
Ferguson J. E.,
Murphy R. P.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci1973.0011183x001300040021x
Subject(s) - biology , medicago sativa , cultivar , medicago , population , crop , botany , agronomy , horticulture , biochemistry , demography , sociology , gene
Twenty‐one multifoliolate alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) entries were compared with four trifoliolate cultivars for six morphological and growth characters 'at two field locations under spaced plant conditions. All studies were made on the second hay crop during the year after establishment. Numerical counts established a mean value for leaflets per leaf of 4.7 ± 0.05 for the entire multifoliolate population. The percentage leaf was 2% higher at location 1 and 5% higher at location 2 for the multifoliolate population over the trifoliolate cultivars. The percent of plants with multifoliolate leaves in the multifoliolate entries was 99. The percent of leaves per plant that were multifoliolate varied from 55 to 83 among the multifoliolate entries. Within the multifoliolate population, leaflets per leaf and leafiness was positively correlated. Negative correlations between plant weight and plant height with percentage leaf were of a similar magnitude for multifoliolate plants as for trifoliolate ones.