Vigour and Fertility Spectra in Autotetraploid Fenugreek

Despite luxuriant growth, autotetraploids of Trigonella foenum-graecum suffered from varying levels of seed sterility. Selection over succeeding generations was adopted to improve seed fertility. C₄ showed sharp improvement over C₁ in number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod. While improvement in vegetable traits continued with passage of generation, seed yield got stabilized atC₄ level. This was despite the facts that C_l2 had diploidized meiosis. To further improve seed setting, two other breeding procedures, i. e. intervarietal hybridization at 4x level followed by intensive selection and artificial induction of mutations are also being tried.