Performance of Some Egyptian Clover Cultivars and Their Tolerance to Dodder Infestation

Abstract

Dodder parasite (Cuscuta planiflora. L) is the main obstacle which causes drastic yield losses in Egyptian forage clover crop in Egypt, accompanied with seed contamination by dodder seeds due to their similarity in size and shape to clover seeds. The present study aimed to determine the magnitude of yield losses due to dodder infestation and to estimate the degree of tolerance of some important Egyptian clover cultivars to dodder infection. Five forage clover cultivars, namely Gemmeza 1, Giza 6, Sakha 4, Helaly and Serw were tested to determine the magnitude of yield losses in these cultivars to dodder infestation and their degree of dodder tolerance under five dodder artificial infestation rates, 0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03 and 0.04 g/pot of dodder seeds carried out in two pot experiments during 2015/2016 and 2016/ 2017 winter seasons in complete randomized block design. Under dodder infestation rates at 0.01, 0.02, 0.03 and 0.04 g/pot the dry forage yield of clover losses were estimated by 32.