Deciphering Genetic Diversity in Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) Collections Using Agronomic and Forage Quality Traits and SSR Markers

Abstract

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is an important dual-purpose crop in drought and famine prone areas as it is used as human food as well as livestock feed and fodder. However, the variation for forage quality traits of grass pea remains largely unexplored. This study aimed to characterize the genetic diversity of grass pea collections from Africa, Asia, and Europe, and identify genotypes for superior agronomic and forage nutritional quality traits. The principal component analysis revealed that the first three principal components from nutritional quality parameters viz., NDF, ADF, cellulose, lignin and ash percent, and from agronomic traits viz., plant height, nodes per plant, leaf area, green and dry biomass accounted for the majority of the total variation. In addition, a total of 59 polymorphic alleles were detected at 11 SSR loci with an average of 5.36 alleles per locus and the polymorphic information content ranged from 0.49 to 0.76. Three accessions (IF1872, IF2177 and IF2156) with higher biomass than the check and four accessions (IF1327, IF1312, IL-10-76 and IF1307) with excellent nutritive value in both green forage as well as straw were identified. The present study revealed high genetic variation for biomass and nutritional quality traits in grass pea collections that could be useful for development of high-yielding, nutritionally rich, and dual-purpose varieties.

Understanding the Potential to Increase Adoption of Orphan Crops: The Case of Lathyrus spp. Cultivation in Greece

“…Among orphan legumes, lathyrus (Lathyrus sativus) serves as a "typical orphan legume crop" or "poor man's insurance crop" [12]. The genus Lathyrus is characterized by great genetic diversity in morphological traits, yield traits, flowering and ripening time intervals, and nutritional quality traits [13][14][15][16]. L. sativus is a favorable alternative to existing crops when it comes to facing increasing stress pressures from rainfall variability, temperature increase, water deficit, and the spread of pest and disease epidemics, due to its important characteristics of resistance and adaptability to abiotic-biotic stresses as well as its minimum input requirements [17,18].…”