Determinatin of morphological diversity in sainfoin (onobrychis sativa lam.) genotypes collected from the nature

Turkey is centre of origin of many species and has wide range of plant diversity. Approximately, 170 sainfoin species are found in the world. It is especially concentrated in the triangle of Anatolia, Iran and Caucassus. In this region, Iran has 32 out 53 species (60.4%), Turkey has 27 out of 52 species (51.9%) and Caucasus has 21 out of 39 species (53.4%); which are endemic. If we compare this data, we find Turkey has important place and is an important centre of development (Aktoklu 1995). Although our country is very rich in genetic variation, these species are limitedly used for breeding. Especially wild species are widely tolerant to various types of stress. Moreover, these varieties constitute an important material for increasing genetic variation in the breeding studies. Thirty three taxa belonging to Onobrychis genus Onobrychis section distribute naturally in Turkey. Because these taxa with cultivation of sainfoin are the same section is very important for breeding programs. It is necessarry to collect populations belonging to these taxa and compare them for their morfologic, agronomic, cytologic, chemical, genetic, physiologic and fodder quality. This will help in increasing the genetic variation in the breeding studies by carrying out crossed using appropriate taxa. 28 agricultural and morphological characters will be studied in this project. In addition, The obtained results will be associated with morphological and studys in the past. The study is entirely original and it is hoped that sainfoin breeding programs will be used in the future. Published in indexed journals and making reference is higher chance because of originality subject. Researches carried out University of Selçuk, Faculty of Agriculture Experimental Fields Prof. Dr. Abdülkadir AKÇİN and Prof. Dr. Ercan CEYHAN Breeding Laboratory.