Study of Variation of Lentil Germplasm Originated from Warm and Dry Climate Zone of Iran

In order to study genetic diversity in 178 accessions of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) originated from warm climate regions of Iran, this experiment was conducted in 2009 at research farm of the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran in Karaj. Experimental design was an augmented experiment with six blocks and each block containes 30 accessions. Accessions were compared with promising lines including Khalkhal and Ardebil landraces as control lines. The descriptive analysis results showed that seed number per plant, number of pods per plant, 100 seed weight and grain weight per plant had the most coefficient of variation and phenotypic diversity. Presence of ground color of testa and pod shedding had high diversity according to shannon index. The positive and significant correlations were found between the pod yield and other traits like the number of seed per plant, number of pod per plant and these traits had the highest effect on seed yield per plant. The results of factor analysis showed that two independent factors explained 79.25% of the variation of the traits. Four subgroups were recognized with cluster analysis and major subgroup had 67 accessions, but the highest genetic distance was estimated in second cluster.