Document Type : Research Paper
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Abstract
This research was aimed to investigate the effect of drought stress on sainfoin ecotypes using two randomized complete block designs with three replications under rainfed and irrigated conditions. The pooled analysis of variance showed significant differences between irrigated and rainfed conditions for most of the traits, indicating significant impact of drought stress. Higher values were obtained for dry forage yield as well as most of the traits under irrigated condition as compared to the rainfed condition. The average number of plant and main stem per plot, (p≤ 0.01) and dry forage yield (p≤0.05) showed significant differences among the ecotypes of sainfoin. The interaction effect between ecotype x environment was not significant for the studied traits. The highest dry forage was recorded for the ecotypes of 14, 19, 48, 25 and 3, with a production of 299.5, 289.1, 266.9, 266.1 and 249.4 g per plot (2m2), respectively. A positive significant correlation (p≤0.01) was found between dry forage yield and number of plants and stems per plot, plant vitality, plant height, and total ash while dry forage yield showed a negative significant correlation with leaf to stem ratio (p ≤ 0.01) and days to flowering (p ≤ 0.05). Stepwise regression results showed that dry weight, number of plants per plot, vitality, days to flowering, and plant height were the main components of dry forage yield (R2=91). There was no direct associatin between cluster analysis grouping and geographical origin of ecotypes
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