Agro-Morphological Traits Variation in Some Lentil Landrace Cultivars from Northwest of Iran

Lentil is one of the most important pulse crops. It is cultivated in many parts of the world as well as in Iran. A comprehensive understanding of variation between lentil landraces is very important for breeding programs. To evaluate genetic variation of 13 landraces collected from different northwest areas of Iran, an experiment was conducted including two improved varieties using a randomized complete block design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed significant variations among cultivars for seed yield, seed and pod number, biological yield, yield of single and couple seed in pod, number of initial branches, number of heavy-single and couple seeds in pod, number of single and couple immature seeds in pod and yield in hectare (P≤0.01). Differences among cultivars were significant for plant height and number of initial branches (P≤0.05). Results showed large variations among cultivars implying that there is potential efficiency of selection among landraces. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed for quantitative traits and determined 85.6% of the total variation using first four components. The cultivars were grouped into three clusters based on Euclidean distance following Ward’s method. The Ahmad-Abad and the Ghaia-Gheshlagh landraces were grouped in one distinct cluster and were determined as the best of cultivars even better than the improved varieties. Therefore, they can be introduced as superior cultivars.