Protein content in wild and cultivated taxa of lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medikus)

The protein contents in 72 diverse accessions of lentil ranged from 10.5 to 23.7% with an average of 18.7% in varieties/breeding lines, 14.5 to 27.1% with an average of 22.4% in landraces of Mediterranean origin and 18.1 to 32.7% with an average of 22.6% in wild species. Significantly high protein content (32.7%) was recorded in accession ILWL 47 belonging to Lens ervoides. The coefficient of variation and standard deviation in Mediterranean landraces (18.1%) showed high protein contents as compared to varieties/breeding lines (16.9%) and wild species (17.8%). As per the Jaccard's similarity coefficient based on protein content 72 accessions were grouped into two main clusters. Cluster I possessed a solitary accession ILWL 47 while remaining accessions were grouped in cluster II, which was subdivided into sub cluster IIa with 48 genotypes and IIb comprising of 29 accessions of varieties/breeding lines, 16 of wild species and 3 landraces. The results indicated that Indian varieties/breeding lines are significantly different from Mediterranean landraces and wild species in respect of protein contents.