Morphological Variability in a Diverse Collection of Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) Germplasm Accessions

Lathyrus sativus is considered as an important economical source of high-quality proteins and adaptability to global climate change. This study is based on the agro-morphological characterization of the 48 grasspea germplasm including checks i.e. Mahateora and Prateek. The forty-eight grasspea germplasm accessions were classified for twenty one morphological characters according to the DUS descriptor of Lathyrus developed by International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, Italy (2000). Diversity shown by 14 characters out of total 21 qualitative characters. Monomorphic, Dimorphic and Trimorphic characters were seen in the germplasm under studied. No variation was observed in plant type, number of leaflets per leaf, pigmentation of leaf vein, leaf pubescence, number of pods per peduncle, seed shape and cotyledon colour. The characters that show medium diversity in the germplasm includes Anthocyanin pigmentation of leaf, leaf colour, leaflet shape, leaf petiole colour, leaf tendril, seed coat colour, seed size, seed coat surface and seed coat pattern were under dimorphic characters. Stem colour coating, stem wax coating, leaf colour, flower colour, pod shape and pod curvature are the characters in the germplasm showing high diversity. Phenotypic descriptors are crucial for plant breeders to discriminate specific parental germplasm for targeted phenotypes.