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Alfalfa is planted in more than 30 million hectares worldwide, but despite its popularity in temperate regions, it is not widely grown in subtropical agroecosystems. It is critical to improve alfalfa for such regions, considering current predictions of global warming and the increasing demands for animal-based products. In this study, we examined the diversity present in subtropical alfalfa germplasm and reported genetic parameters for forage production. An initial screening was performed from 2014 to 2016, evaluating 121 populations from different subtropical origins. Then, a breeding population was created by crossing selected plants, resulting in 145 full-sib and 36 half-sib families, which were planted in a row-column design with augmented representation of three controls (‘Bulldog805′, ‘FL99′ and ‘UF2015′). Dry matter yield (DMY), canopy height (AH), and percentage blooming (BLOOM) were measured across several harvests. Moderate narrow-sense heritability and high genetic correlations between consecutive harvests were estimated for all traits. The breeding line UF2015 produced higher DMY than FL99 and Bulldog805, and it could be a candidate cultivar release. Several families produced higher DMY than all checks, and they can be utilized to develop high yielding and adapted alfalfa cultivars for subtropical agroecosystems.

Increasing the ratio of oleic to linoleic acid (O/L) in peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) significantly improves the nutritional and quality attributes of the crop. In currently grown cultivars, the O/L ratio ranges from 0.8 to 2.5. Variation in peanut for O/L ratio has been characterized, and the O/L ratio is digenically inherited at two loci designated as Ol1 and Ol2 Previous research has been conducted with Virginia‐ and runner‐type peanut; however, there have been no reports regarding the inheritance and allele frequency at these loci in Spanish‐type peanut. The objectives of this study were to determine if the inheritance of the high oleate trait in Spanish‐type peanut is similar to that previously reported and to determine the allelic composition of Spanish‐type peanut at Ol1 and Ol2 Six different Spanish‐type peanut cultivars (low oleate) were hybridized with F435‐2—2 (high oleate). F2 and BC1F1 progenies were evaluated for the O/L ratio. Segregation patterns indicated that high oleic acid content is digenically inherited in Spanish‐type peanut, but there seems to be more allelic variation both within and among these cultivars. In addition, variation within the high and low oleate ratio classes indicated that other factors may be involved in determining the precise O/L ratio.

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