Iranian Journal Pulses Research

Abstract Introduction
Research, selection and protection of landraces in most countries of the world are very important and considered as one of the most important and significant issues in plant breeding programs. Despite the recent progresses in plant breeding programs, using of landraces is still particularly important, especially in the self pollinated crops. In breeding programs, the existence of favorable variation in the population is essential and without variation, the progress and development of breeding programs will be slow process. Lentil seeds are a major role in feed and food security for millions of people, especially among the low income Asian population, because of protein content and cheap price. The lentil plant has also played an important role as a rotation crop for increasing the fertility of soils and it has been special attention for agronomists and researchers in case of sustainable agriculture. Food legume cultivation traditionally is common in Iran. Except in the northern wet areas, lentil cultivated in most parts of Iran. Its cultivation areas is 150-200 thousand hectares and ranked as second important food legume in the drylands area. There are little studies about evaluation and purification of lentil landraces in Iran. Kouhin region in Ghazvin province with about 12000 hectare lentil cultivated area is one of the most favorite regions of cultivation and production of lentil in Iran. Green Koohin lentil landrace has good quality and nutritional value and is famous for consumers in the country.
 
Materials & Methods
This study was performed to evaluate a lentil landrace originated from Kouhin region in Ghazvin province. The experiment was conducted for two consecutive seasons during 2010-12 under field condition in Maragheh Dryland Agricultural Research Station (Latitude 37°15′ N, Longitude 46°15΄ E, and Altitude 1720 meter above sea level). In spring 2011 and 2012, the seeds of 120 pure lines (individual plants that were selected from Kouhin landrace), planted at farm under rainfed condition and eight traits (No. of days to flowering, No. of days to maturity, grain filling period, plant height, 100 seed weight, seed yield, biological yield and harvest index) were noted. Statistical parameters (maximum, minimum, mean, standard division and phenotypic coefficient of variance) were calculated for noted characteristics. After standardization of data, distance modulus squared Euclidean distance cluster analysis was done in Ward method.
 
Results & Discussion
Analysis of variance results showed that there were significant differences between the genotypes in all studied traits except in the case of biomass yield and harvest index. These results indicating the existence of genetic diversity among the pure lines extracted from the Kouhin lentil landrace. Results of estimating descriptive statistics of studied characteristics in the 120 pure lines showed that, the grain yield among the studied characteristics in two years means had the highest diversity. In the first year, the minimum and maximum grain yield (160 and 1420 Kg/ha) belonged to genotypes No. 98 and No. 14, respectively. In the second year grain yield was also varied from 170 Kg/ha (genotype no. 113) to 980 Kg/ha (genotype no. 73). This result indicated the existence of high performance potential within the Kouhin landrace and in order to improve the grain yield of population, identification and purification of the high yielding genotypes from population recommended. Among the studied traits the minimum diversity belonged to number of days from plating till flowering and maturity. Regarding to this point that the Kouhin landrace was cultivated from long time ago by farmers, natural factors such as day length, existence of drought stress (especially after flowering because of dryland farming) removed the late genotypes and caused relatively hemozigosity on these two traits in the Kouhin population. Results of clustering showed that genotypes were categorized in six groups. Twenty five genotypes were in the fifth group that their grain yield (527.6±126.8 Kg/ha) was higher than other groups.
 
Conclusion
The results of this study showed that it could be improved the grain yield and other characterstics of Kouhin population under drylands condition by selection of pure lines. Also it is possible to use the existing potentialities in Kouhin landrace (genetic diversity) in the lentil breeding programs under dryland condition. Conclusion of the results showed that there is suit variation in Kouhin lentil landrace and it could be used as a precious resource for lentil breeding programs under dryland of Iran.

Abstract Introduction There are many different factors that affect yield and quality of agricultural crops, including weed management. The abundance, distribution, density and composition of weed species in a cropped field varies due to the nature of the crop, cultural practices and cropping pattern/system, soil type, moisture availability, location and season, therefore identification of weed flora is important to identify the proper weed control options and enables farmers to use the best management strategies. Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an increasingly important cash crop for growers in western provinces of Iran. Due to the lack of basic information about the weed diversity in common bean fields in Lorestan province which is the mean producer of bean in Iran), the current study was conducted for exact identification of flora condition of weeds.   Materials & Methods The present investigation was carried out to find out weed floristic composition in common bean fields of Azna (33°45΄ N latitude, 49°45΄ E longitude, with a mean altitude of 1871 m above sea level), in the North of Lorestan province during 2014. In this study, 34 fields of bean using method of stratified random-sampling, and by assigning the suitable number of the samples for each level, were selected. The longitude and latitude and sea level of different fields were recorded exactly by global positioning system (GPS). In order to determine the density and composition of weeds, sampling in each field done using the pattern of W. According to the pattern of the W, 9 points in each field were selected and the distance between two sampling points was 20 meters and in each point by using a 0.5 m × 0.5m quadrate the density and composition of weed species was determined. For data analysis of weed flora in the fields, frequency, abundance index, distribution uniformity and mean density were calculated using appropriate equations. Weed frequency indicates the proportion of fields where the species was found. The diversity of weed species was described by species richness and weed density was determined by counting the number of plants in each sampling quadrate. Cluster analysis was done by JMP software using the data related to species richness index, species diversity and similarity.   Results & Discussion In the current experiment, 23 weed species from 14 families were collected and identified at the different bean fields in the studied region. The highest number of weed species belongs to Poaceae family (five species) and Asteraceae family (three species). Based on results, 78% and 22% of weed species were dicotyledonous and monocotyledon respectively. Among the identified weed about 65% were annual and the remaining species were biennial or perennial. It seems that intensive and high input cultivation of common bean in the studied region affected the composition and diversity and density of weeds. Previous studies also showed that perennial weed communities under less cultivation and reduced tillage systems are often more frequent whearase in conventional systems the annual weed are dominant. Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.), Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) and Redroot Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus L.) had the highest and Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum L.) and Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratensis L.) had the lowest density, uniformity and abundance in the common bean fields. The density of the weed species varied considerably in the different fields and the maximum density of weed (5.5 plants. m²) in the fields was recorded for Hibiscus trionum. The most important noxious weed of studied regions were Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), (Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers.)، (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) and (Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv.). The highest value of species richness index (27.5) and Simpsons diversity index (0.94) were recorded for Southwest, whereas the lowest value of species richness index (17.14) and Simpsons diversity index (0.86) calculated for Southeast regions. Results of another study showed that species richness is related to geographical condition and increase with the height. Decrease of species richness in plain areas suggests that agronomic management has a strong effect on species diversity and weed abundance during the time.   Conclusion The occurrence of numerous weed species in bean fields means that different methods of weed control must be selected because some of these weeds such as redroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus L.) can produce a lot of small seed which may increase the problem of weeds in further years. The higher number of dicotyledonous weeds means that special cautions for the use of chemical herbicides is necessary because many of recommended herbicides for broadleaf weeds could result in serious damages to the common bean fields. It seems that in these conditions considering the integrated weed management (IWM) methods is justified.

Abstract Assessment of different plant genetic resources clarifies genetic variation and makes it possible to apply them in plant breeding programs. In this experiment, 27 selected lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), one local landrace and two conventional bean cultivars (Talash and COS-16 as controls), sown using randomized complete block design with three replications in the Research Farm of University of Zanjan in 2009. Results of analysis of variance showed significant differences among all tested genotypes (P< 0.01). There was a close agreement in grouping results of cluster analysis and principle component analysis. The principal component analysis showed that first four components explained 81% of the total variation. For the first component, traits including days to 50% podding, plant height and grain yield justified the most variation, and for the second component, emergence percentage and emergence index justified the maximum justified coefficient of determination. For the third component, days to full maturity, and for the fourth component, number of seed per pod showed the most variance. It was concluded that lines number 24, 21, 5 and 20 had higher values compared to other genotypes.