Determination of some characteristic of alfalfa populations collected in Ahi Evran University campus

In this study, 51 alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) populations collected from the Ahi Evran University campus were used. The study was conducted with 40 plants of each population, with 51 plots established at Ahi Evran University experimental field. The study was conducted to determine the important morphological characteristics of the populations and the differences between them to provide the material that will be the basis for the breeding studies in this region. According to the results of the research, the mean values of the alfalfa populations were determined as following; plant height 96.7 cm, the number of main stems 37.2, main stem length 93.2 cm, main stem thickness 3.3 mm, leaflet length 19.7 mm, leaflet width 6.5 mm, leaflet stem length 3.2 mm, flower colors blue and purple, the number of days of flowering 65.7 days and the number of maturity days 97.4, and the number of days to the first flowering 40.7 days. The average number of flowers per plant was 234.3, root length was 40.6 cm, root weight was 82 g, average number of nodules was 51. It was observed that the majority of populations were either upright or semi-upright. The average forage yields were 141 g/plant in the first cut, 153.1 g/plant in the second cut and 113.5 g/plant in the third cut, with a total yield of 407.6 g/plant. Dry matter yields were determined to be 61.2 g plant in the first cut, 51.2 g/plant in the second, 45.3 g/plant in the third cut, being 157.7 g/plant total dry matter yield. The mean grain yield was 6.8 g, thousand seed weight was 2.1 g and the seed number per pod was 5.3. Variation between the alfalfa populations was found to be important for nearly all characters.