ERSITY IN SEED YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS OF NARBON VETCH (VICIA NARBONENSIS L.) GENOTYPES

The present investigation was undertaken to evaluate yield criteria in narbon vetch (Vicia narbonensis L.), one of the most promising feed/forage crops for the arid and semi-arid regions, using correlation, path and principal component analyses (PCA) in true Mediterranean climate conditions. The trials were conducted under rainfed conditions in trial fields at Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University in Antalya-Turkey (approximately 30 44' E, 36 degrees 52' N, 51 m above the sea level) for two growing seasons. The experiment design was a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. The correlation analysis results revealed that seed yield was positively and significantly correlated with biological yield, number of pods per plant, plant height, harvest index and number of seeds per plant. The PCA showed that first five components explained 79% of the existing variation in genotypes and demonstrated especially the roles of biological yield and number of main braches per plant as strong determining traits controlling the overall variation. Path analysis showed that biological yield, harvest index and number of seeds per plant had strong positive direct effects on the enhancement of seed yield of narbon vetch. The overall results in this study suggested that narbon vetch breeding studies should focus on biological yield, number of pods per plant, plant height, harvest index and number of seeds per plant, number of main branches per plant, 1000-seed weight and pod length for high seed yield.