Determination of some agricultural and cytological characters of natural cocksfoot plants (Dactylis glomerata ssp. glomerata L.)

Abstract

This 2 year study was conducted with the intend of determining some agricultural and cytological characters of native cocksfoot plants, (Dactylis glomerata ssp. glomerata) collected from several places in Ondokuz Mayis University, Kurupelit Campus Samsun-Turkey in 2002-2003 years. A large variation was noted on examined characters in both 2 years. This variation shows that a selection programme on agronomically important characters of cocksfoot can be successful. Average number of fertile tillers, panicle length, number of spikelets in panicle and thousand seed weight of naturally growing cocksfoot plants were determined as 10.3-10.0, 13.0-10.8 cm, 143.8-133.3, 0.78-0.86 g in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Average seed yield per plant was 1.48 g in 2002 and 1.22 g in 2003. Average germination vigour of collected seeds were between 65.9-51.7%. All plants were tetraploid (2n = 28) according to result of somatic chromosome counts and aneuploidy and Chromosome B were not observed. © 2006 Asian Network for Scientific Information.