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Thirty-one European accessions of grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) originating from Italy, Spain, Northern France, Germany and Poland grown in the same soil-climatic conditions in Poland were investigated. The morphological traits as well as the seed morphology and nutrient contents were studied. Substantial differentiation in some morphological characteristics was noticed. The plants could be assigned to two groups: one group comprising the lines from the Mediterranean basin (Italy and Spain) and the other group containing the accessions from West-central Europe (Northern France, Germany and Poland). The grass pea plants produced from the seeds obtained from West-central Europe appeared to be about 10 cm taller than the Mediterranean accessions and had predominantly white flowers. Their seeds were more than two times smaller than seeds of the accessions of Italian or Spanish origin. There were not noted any considerable differences in nutrient contents or antinutritional factors in seeds between these two groups of Lathyrus accessions. A negative correlation between b-ODAP and tannin contents (r = -0.379, P B 0.05) and a positive correlation (r = 0.843, P B 0.01) between a tannin content and flower color intensity were found. A white or crème colour was associated with a low tannin level in the seeds, while the colourful blooming accessions had higher tannin contents.

White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) has unexploited potential as a crop plant due to its high seed yield as well as protein and oil content in seeds. Wellcharacterized collections of gene resources are very important for breeding as a source of genetic variation. This paper presents the results of analyses for total content and qualitative composition of alkaloids in seeds of 367 L. albus accessions from the Polish Genebank. Accessions were divided into four classes of origin: wild collected material, land races, breeding lines, and cultivars. Apart from the expected broad variation as well as strong differentiation in the alkaloid content, a clear influence of domestication was observed. This was shown as an apparent decrease in the alkaloid content in breeding lines and cultivars classes. The total alkaloid content varies from 0.02 to 12.73% of the seed dry weight. Six major alkaloids (abundance [1%) were revealed: lupanine (28.22-94.49%, mean 76.06% in total content), 13-hydroxylupanine (0.10-32.78%, mean 8.23%), multiflorine (0.00-21.67%, mean 5.52%), albine (0.00-18.55%, mean 4.48%), angustifoline (0.24-12.14%, mean 2.07%), 11,12-seco-12,13-didehydromultiflorine (0.00-12.28%, mean 1.74%). Owing to its abundance, lupanine was found to be the most closely correlated to the total alkaloid content.

Piwowarczyk B., Kamińska I., Rybiński W. (2014): Influence of PEG generated osmotic stress on shoot regeneration and some biochemical parameters in Lathyrus culture. Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 50: 77-83.Several Lathyrus species and in particular Lathyrus sativus (grass pea) display much tolerance to drought and have great agronomic potential as grain and forage legumes. Studies on these crop species could improve our understanding of the mechanisms of plant resistance to water stress. This investigation was aimed at examining the effect of low water potential generated by polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 on seed germination, shoot regeneration and some biochemical parameters related to drought stress. Seeds of eight Lathyrus accessions (six of L. sativus, one of L. cicera, one of L. tingitanus) were cultured on MB (MS macro and microelements with B5 vitamins) medium with addition of 5 mg/l BAP (6-benzyloaminopurine). Different levels of water-stress were induced by using three concentrations of PEG 6000 (50, 100 and 150 g/l) in MB medium. Osmotic stress had no influence on seed germination of any of the accessions tested. However, an increased concentration of PEG in the media caused a decrease in the multiplication rate and vigour of newly regenerated shoots. The percentage content of dry matter and proline content in Lathyrus shoots increased significantly under osmotic stress. In turn, water stress had a little effect on photosynthetic pigments.

The paper assess the variability of fat content and fatty acids profiles in seeds of a white lupin (Lupinus albus L.) domestic collection. The initial material comprised 371 accessions originated from 30 countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, North-and South America and Australia. According to data given by accession donors the material is divided into four classes of origin: wild lines, landraces, lines created by man and cultivars. Variability of fat content and fatty acids composition were estimated in seeds of each accession. The average fat content for analyzed collection is 9.81%. The broadest range of fat content was noticed for landraces and cultivars as compared to narrowest . In respect to unsaturated fatty acid (UFA), monounsaturated oleic acid in each of estimated classes of accessions was predominant and most abundant (55.7%) in broad range of minimummaximum values from 41.2 to 66.2%. The second examined monounsaturated fatty acid was erucic acid (1.74%) found in seeds of almost all studied accessions. An exception were four accessions defined similarly to rapeseeds as ''zero erucic'' forms. In seeds of few accessions a content of erucic acid exceeded 3%. Among polyunsaturated fatty acids linoleic FA (x-6) dominated followed by linolenic FA (x-3). Both FA were in the range 13.7-33.2% and 5.6-12.8% with mean values on the level 19.6 and 10.1%, respectively. As a consequence, the examined white lupin seeds showed a very favourable x-3/x-6 FA ratio (0.51), ranging from 0.21 to 0.87, much higher than that of most vegetable oils. Fat content was positively correlated with stearic and oleic fatty acids and negatively with palmitic, linoleic, linolenic and erucic acid.

SU MMARYThe objective of the present paper was to propose a statistical approach to support selection of the most promising genotypes in a breeding programme. The approach is based on applying two state-of-the-art statistical methodologies, likelihood-based path analysis and model-based cluster analysis. The first method is applied to find a causal mechanism lying behind a biological process of development of final crop yield. These results are then used for weighting traits to be used in cluster analysis, which helps select genotypes possessing a desirable level of yield and yield-contributing traits. An application of the approach is presented for a 2-year study on 22 grasspea genotypes, two cultivars (Derek and Krab) and 20 mutants from those cultivars. Seed yield/plant and seven yield-related traits were studied. Among these, plant height, number of branches/plant, pod length and number of seeds/plant determined seed yield ; number of pods/plant influenced seed yield only for 2002. These results were used for appropriate weighting in cluster analysis, which indicated that cultivar Krab and its two mutants, K3 and K64, had the best level of the traits and were the most stable genotypes.

The object of the study comprised 54 grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) accessions originating from Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia together with 18 red pea (Lathyrus cicera) accessions from Greece, Spain and Italy. The plants were grown under the same conditions in Poland. Some phenological and morphological traits of plants as well as some seed morphological properties and nutritive value were investigated. Lathyrus sativus seeds contained more protein (average 300 g vs. 255 g kg -1 dry matter (DM)), whereas the differences in the average contents of the other basic nutrients between both these species as well as between particular accessions were not substantial. Except for a low level of methionine, the protein of both species showed fairly high concentration of other exogenic amino acids (EAAI around 63-64%). Fat of both L. sativus and L. cicera seeds was found to contain a high level of polyunsaturated fatty acids (66.9 and 58.6%, respectively), mainly linoleic (57. DM, respectively. Average content of this ANF in L. sativus significantly correlated with the colour of both, flowers and seeds; with generally, a darker colour associated with higher levels of tannins.

Low molecular weight carbohydrates of seeds of 10 species of Vicia, namely: V. angustifolia, V. articulata, V. cordata, V. ervilia, V. johannis, V. macrocarpa, V. monantha, V. narbonensis, V. pannonica and V. sativa were analyzed by the high resolution gas chromatography method. Seeds of the investigated species contain common (glucose, fructose, myo-inositol, sucrose, galactinol, di-galactosyl myo-inositol and raffinose family oligosaccharidesRFOs) and species-specific carbohydrates (D-pinitol and its a-D-galactosides-in V. articulata, V. monantha and V. pannonica or D-ononitol and its galactoside-in V. ervilia). Among the species containing in seeds RFOs as the main a-D-galactosides (V. angustifolia, V. cordata, V. johanensis, V. macrocarpa, V. narbonensis and V. sativa), an additional subgroup can be separated, which contains a set of unknown compounds (found in V. angustifolia, V. cordata and V. macrocarpa). Moreover, several other unidentified carbohydrate-containing compounds were detected exclusively in seeds of V. ervilia. The concentrations of total soluble carbohydrates (TSCs), including sugars, RFOs, cyclitols and galactosyl cyclitols and unknown compounds, in seeds differ significantly (P \ 0.05) among the species. RFOs and sucrose are the main fractions in TSCs, with the exception of V. pannonica seeds, containing more galactosyl pinitols, and V. ervilia, in which unknown compounds account for 50% of TSCs. In V. ervilia RFOs occur at the lowest concentration (9.32 mg g -1 seeds), and the concentration of DGMI (di-galactosyl myo-inositol) is comparable with that of RFOs, which is unusual among all the investigated Vicia species.