Proceedings of the XLVII Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Verona, Italy - 24/27 September, 2003

ISBN 88-900622-4-X

Oral Communication Abstract - S2c

BREEDING FOR HIGH FORAGE PRODUCTION AND SEED RETENTION IN COMMON VETCH (VICIA SATIVA L.)

F. CALCAGNO, T. SOARE, A. BOZZINI, G. SOARE, F. CALCAGNO

EUROGEN

common vetch, pod shattering, seed production, breeding

Pod shattering is a common feature in wild legumes, assuring seed dispersal and plant diffusion.

In all domesticated legume crops the "non shattering" is the first and most important trait to be selected by humans, since it assures the possibility of an easy seed harvesting. This character is essential in food legumes, but not always present in many legume crops cultivated for forage production.

Common Vetch represents in Italy and in the Mediterranean basin one of the most important and high quality forage crops, cultivated both alone or in mixture with a cereal (normally oats).

However, all the common vetch cultivars certified in Italy present the wild "shattering pod" character, wich reduces quantity and quality seed production. Moreover, pod shattering is also making difficult mechanical harvesting and is causing weed problems in subsequent (often cereal ) crops.

In 1999 we started a breeding program in order to transfer the "non shattering pod" character, present in a line obtained from ICARDA, but not agronomically adapted to our ecological conditions, into two cultivars: "Francesca" and "Marianna", the result of a previous breeding programme, wich are now widely cultivated in Italy and Spain.

In our material we confirmed the full penetrance of the character, its monogenic and recessive inheritance.

By repeated backcrosses we are now recovering the basic high agronomical performance of the two released cultivars, in addition with the absence of seed dispersal, making the seed production of common vetch more profitable for seed producers and traders and less expensive for farmers.