Genetic analysis of inheritance and mutual relationships among yield components, morphological-biological traits and yield of green mass of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.)

Diallel crosses involving five divergent red clover genotypes (two varieties Junior and Diana, and three populations, Vla ka, BL-3 and M-11) were made at the Experiment Field of the Forage Crops Department of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad. During the 2001-2002 period, progenies obtained in the crosses were tested for stem length, stem thickness, length of central lamina, yield of green mass per plant, start of flowering persistence and growth habit. The analysis of phenotypic variance showed that the additive gene action played the dominant role in the inheritance of stem length, yield of green mass per plant and growth habit. Partial dominance was the most frequent mode of inheritance. A larger contribution of dominant variance to total genotypic variance and low values of narrow sense heritability (hn2) were obtained for stem thickness (16.67% and 23.07% respectively). In both study years (2001-2002), using path coefficient analysis, we observed significant direct effects of stem length on green mass yield per plant (9.09*, and 6.23*, respectively).