Morphological diversity of seeds of Polish Festulolium cultivars depending on weather conditions

Morphological traits of seeds of Festulolium braunii (K. Richt.) A. Camus cultivars were studied in relation to weather conditions. The obtained results show that morphological traits of seeds varied among cultivars and years of cultivation. The values of seed characteristics were higher in year 2016 due to more favorable weather conditions for plant growth. It was found that the husked seeds of Festulolium cultivars were characterized by a similar length and width regardless of the year, whereas naked seeds significantly differed in these characteristics. Mean values (from the research years) of seed parameters, such as thousand seed mass, area, convex area, shape factor, rectangle, as well as naked seed width showed variations among cultivars. At the same time, it was found that the mass of 1 000 seeds of individual cultivars showed the smallest variability in both years of the study (2.56 4.86 %) indicating a high stability of this trait. Thousand seed mass was significantly correlated with husked seed length / husked seed width ratio and husked seed length, and weakly correlated with yield. Additional key words: biometric parameters, husked and naked seeds, thousand seed mass. Submitted 16 June 2020, last revision 5 October 2020, accepted 6 October 2020. Abbreviations: A area of a particle; CA convex area; CP convex perimeter; D diameter; ECD equivalent circle diameter; F feret; HSL husked seed length; HSW husked seed width; MR Martins radius; NSL naked seed length; NSW naked seed width; P perimeter; R rectangle; RL rachilla length; SF shape factor; TSM thousand seed mass. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Eugeniusz Paszkowski from the Plant Breeding Station in Szelejewo, Poland, for the provision of seed material. * Corresponding authors; e-mails: barbara_borawska_jarmulowicz@sggw.edu.pl, grazyna_mastalerczuk@sggw.edu.pl © The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Licence