FORAGE YIELD, QUALITY CHARACTERS AND GENETIC VARIABILITY OF SOME PROMISING EGYPTIAN CLOVER POPULATIONS

The present study was conducted to evaluate eight berseem populations (selected for high forage yield) with five check cultivars and to estimate the relationships between yield, some growth parameters, quality characters, genetic variance, phenotypic variance, heritability, genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variability in the experimental research station at Nubaria region, Al-Behira government across the two growing seasons 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. The results could be summarized from the combined analysis of the two seasons which indicated that the cultivar Helaly recorded the highest fresh and dry yield (71.065, 9.783 kg/plot) followed by the promising Pop.4 (70.579, 9.699 kg/plot) and Pop.6 (69.388, 9.683 kg/plot), respectively with insignificant differences. Helaly, Gemmiza- 1 and Pop.6 recorded the highest values of dry leaf/stem ratio with insignificant differences. The highest fresh leaf/stem ratio was obtained from Helaly, Pop.4 and Pop.6. While Pop.1 and Giza-6 recorded the lowest values of fresh and dry leaf/stem ratio. However, mean percentage of crude protein (CP %) and digestible crude protein (DCP %) were lower in Serw- 1 and Pop.1, while, Pop.46 and Gemmiza-1 recorded the highest values of CP% and DCP%. Helaly, Pop.46 and Gemmiza-1 gave the highest values of crude fiber (CF%) and ash%. Heritability was high for all traits studied. Fresh leaf/stem ratio showed the highest heritability (97.50%) followed by dry leaf/stem ratio (96.38%). A positive correlation was obtained between ash% with dry leaf/stem ratio and dry leaf/stem ratio (r = 0.87** and r = 0.86**), and between crude fiber with dry leaf/stem ratio and dry leaf/stem ratio (r = 0.90** and r = 0.84**). Besides, there was highly significant correlation between crude fiber% and ash% (r =-0.94**).The results reflected that Pop.4 and Pop.6 did not differ significantly from the commercial cultivar Helaly, and therefore it is recommended to multiply and use them in the breeding program to improve the productivity of Egyptian clover.