Seed Yield and Its Components in Three Festuca Species

Abstract

An experiment has been performed in four locations in Poland (Radzików, Leszno, Szelejewo and Nieznanice).Fifteen genotypes from three species (tall fescue - Festuca arundinacea, meadow fescue - F. pratensisand red rescue - F. rubra) were measured and observed during two consecutive years. Despite of phenologicalobservations (heading and flowering start dates), biometrical measurements (plant height, leaf dimension,number of generative stems etc.) and physiological trait (chlorophyll contents index) seed yield of singlepanicle, seed yield of plant and seed yield per plot (i.e. 50 plants) were determined.Significant effects of years, locations and genotypes were calculated for mentioned species for almost alltested traits. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to estimate major predictors of seed yield. It resultedin different numbers of predictors for different species. For meadow fescue five, for red fescue – three and fortall fescue – only two statistically significant predictors were selected. For all species leaf width and numberof generative stems were statistically significant and had positive weights. For meadow and red fescue – alsoseed yield from single inflorescence was significant with positive weight. Our results demonstrate that leafwidth together with number of steams and single panicle yield are the most important determinants of plantseed yield in three Festuca species.

Variability of Selected Traits in Meadow Fescue (Festuca pratensis Huds.) Plants with Different Susceptibility to Seed Shattering

“…Habitat conditions affect not only the heading and flowering phenophases, mainly through air temperature and amount of precipitation [7], but also the morphological traits of plants. As the results of many studies show, the number of seeds produced in grasses depends directly on the number of generative shoots and their length [4,8,9], as well as on the length of their panicles [6,10].…”