Abstract
Drought or reduced water availability is the main factor limiting crop production in Mediterranean area. The aim of this study was to select ecotypes of Festuca arundinacea Schreb. adapted to the Moroccan environment. During 3 years, eleven ecotypes of tall fescue, collected from different regions of Morocco, and eight commercial cultivars were evaluated for the following agronomical traits: dry matter yield, summer growth, heading date, survival rate, leaf area index (LAI) and plant height.
Principal Component Analysis showed that 3 components explain 80% of total variability. Perenniality, plant height, ground cover, heading date and summer dormancy were associated with the 1st component. Ground cover and dry matter yield were associated with the 2nd component, while resistance to disease was associated with the 3rd component. Cluster analysis yielded three groups of tall fescue accessions and one unclustered ecotype.
Dry matter yield was significantly correlated with plant height, number of tillers and summer growth (r = 0.68, r = 0.61 and r = 0.56 respectively).
In terms of production potential and perenniality, some local ecotypes present certain superiority in comparison with the commercial varieties. These ecotypes could be eventually exploited to create new Moroccan varieties.
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Shaimi, N., Kallida, R., Al Faiz, C. (2010). Agronomic Evaluation of Moroccan Ecotypes of Tall Fescue. In: Huyghe, C. (eds) Sustainable use of Genetic Diversity in Forage and Turf Breeding. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8706-5_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8706-5_23
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