Evaluation of Lentil Germplasm Accessions for Winter Hardness in Bulgaria

Tz. STOILOVA

Institute for Plant Genetic Resources, BG-4122 Sadovo, Bulgaria

Abstract

STOILOVA, Tz., 2000. Evaluation of lentil germplasm accessions for winter hardness in Bulgaria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 6: 161-164

Lentils is the second major grain legume crop after beans in Bulgaria. After changed of policy there are interested in many different crops for different regions. Traditionally Lentils is grown in spring as a crop to avoid severe winter conditions. In this study a total of 50 accessions with different origin was evaluated for winter hardness at IPGR, Sadovo – Central South Bulgaria during 1993-1997 seasons. The absolute minimum temperatures were -10.4 ⁰C, – 19.5 ⁰C, – 14.5 ⁰C and – 12.2 ⁰C, respectively.
Winter hardness was assessed as a percentage of survived plants after emergence and after winter. All genotypes were grouped according to their winter hardness. The most susceptible was traditional spring check following by some accessions from Bulgaria, France and Jugoslavia. The most winter hardness was one accession from Turkey comparing with local tolerant check. Some accessions have a good combination of winter hardness with other attributes like plant height, height of lowest pod, number of pods/seeds per plant and 100-seeds weight.

Key words: Lens culinaris, lentils, genotypes, winter hardness, evaluation