Egyptian clover or Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) is a widely adapted good nutritious annual fodder crop. To estimate the genetic variability, 598 lines of berseem were evaluated using augmented block design. The material included released varieties, advanced breeding lines, induced tetraploid lines and ecotypes. Although wide range of variation was observed for most of the traits, a closer look indicated that the majority of the accessions centered around the mean leaving little number of accessions on the extremes. The frequency distribution was observed to be symmetrical and unimodal for most of the traits indicating thereby a continuous variation among the population. Similar trend was observed for floral and seed characters. Marked differences were observed among the diploid and tetraploid genotypes for foliar traits such as leaflet shape, size, margin and surface hairiness. The study indicated that the germplasm had derived from narrow genetic base. Promising lines were identified which have high value for particular traits and can be exploited in genetic improvement programme.
Genetic variability, Berseem, Trifolium alexandrinum, Germplasm evaluation
