Seed of Finnish Tepa tetraploid red clover, diploid Tammisto white clover, diploid Tammisto and tetraploid Iso alsike clovers was multiplied for two generations in Israel. Changes in the varietal populations were evaluated concurrently in Finland (approx. 60°N) and in Israel (approx. 32°N).The percentage of flowering plants in the original population was generally lower and the period of time over which individual plants started to flower was longer in Israel than in Finland. The first‐generation progeny of most varieties showed an increase in the number of early‐flowering plants compared to the original seed. This was most pronounced in Tammisto alsike clover in Israel. Seed harvested from the second year stand tended to be less affected than that harvested in the seedling year, depending on the time of harvest. The second‐generation progeny produced from the varieties showed also in many cases an increase in the number of early‐flowering plants. The shift was most pronounced in the first harvest year seed lots of Tepa red clover and Tammisto white clover. On the other hand, only a slight increase in early types was found in the second generation progenies of Tammisto and Iso alsike clovers. All Tammisto white clover seed lots overwintered similarly.Conclusions drawn from the evaluation trials of identical seed lots in the area of seed growing (Israel) were fairly similar to those from the area of forage adaptation (Finland), except in diploid Tammisto alsike clover in which the shift to earliness was more pronounced in the evaluation in Israel than in Finland.
Seven alfalfa varieties differing in degree of winterhardiness were germinated in water and in 6‐atm mannitol solution (500 ml substrate) at 20 C in the dark. The delay in germination was expressed as the ratio between the rate of germination over the period at which most of the slope of the germination curve is near linear in the 0‐ and 6‐atm solutions, respectively. This ratio (R0R0 value) was found to be closely related to the apparent winterhardiness of the varieties.The test enabled fair separation between 19 and 21 seed lots of ‘Ranger’ and ‘Vernal’ alfalfa, respectively. The lots represented different generations of increase and were derived from a wide latitudal range of seed production areas. However, all were from the same harvesting year.
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