Horticultural and Potential Breeding Value of Sugar Pea Landraces from Northwestern Spain

Abstract

Twenty sugar pea (Pisum sativum L.) landraces common to northwestern Spain (Pontevedra), and potentially of interest as parental material, were evaluated at two locations and for 2 years to study the diversity among them for plant and pod physical quality traits. The main objective was to identify landraces that could be included in breeding programs. Highly significant differences among landraces were found for most of the pod traits, such as length, width, length/width index, fresh weight, and flowering date. Genotype–environment interactions were demonstrated for only three traits of the 10 investigated. High values for correlation coefficients were mostly found for pod traits, but highly significant ones (i.e., P ≤ 0.01) were found for traits other than for pods. Most of the landraces were variable for qualitative and quantitative traits. PSM-0070, PSM-0113, and PSM-0116 were superior for earliness and pod physical quality, but were heterogenous. PSM-0064, PSM-0066, PSM-0117, and PSM-0118 lacked pod parchment.