Performance of morphologically divergent plant types in dried peas (Pisum sativum)

Abstract

SUMMARYIn 1991 and 1992, four sets of isogenic lines and eight released cultivars of pea (Pisum sativum L.) differing at the loci af (normal leaflets are converted to tendrils) and st (reduced stipule size) were grown in conventional plot stands at Göttingen, Germany. Crops were either supported by wire netting, to avoid the negative effects of lodging on yield, or were unsupported, thus permitting natural lodging, in order to study the effect of both genes on yield.The conventional, normal-leafed plant type (AFAF STST) exhibited the highest yield potential, but also the largest yield reduction due to natural lodging. Yield potential of the ‘semi-leafless’ plant type (afaf STST) was less than that of the conventional type but, due to its better standing ability, the yield of the unsupported, ‘semi-leafless’ crop, on average, was less reduced by lodging than was the yield of the conventional one. With the additional reduction in stipule size by the gene st, the decrease in yield potential was too large to be counterbalanced by the positive effects of an improved standing ability. For the released cultivars, the effects of both genes on crop performance were smaller than for the isogenic lines.