Morphological characterization and genetic diversity of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum l.) accessions in oman

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the important legume crops grown in the Sultanate of Oman. The objective of this study was to characterize morphological differences and yield related traits among 20 Omani fenugreek acces-sions. A field experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design for two winter seasons. Significant differences were observed among Omani fenugreek accessions in plant height (mean = 26.8± 14.9 cm), number of branches (3.4 ± 2.7), number of leaves (42.1± 33.0), leaf area (2.3 ± 0.96 cm²), number of pods (32.1 ± 21.4), pod length (9.1 ± 1.2 cm), weight of pods (17.3 ± 0.0 g),1000 seed weight (11.2 g),and number of seeds (134.2 ± 101.7). The heritability index of number of seeds (0.94), leaf area (0.90) and number of leaves (0.81) showed the highest values, while it was lowest for number of pods (0.44) and 1000 seed weight (0.54). A higher genetic advance was observed in number of seeds (100.39) while the lowest genetic advance was observed in pod length (0.51).The principle component analysis (PCA) yielded 77% of the total variation in two seasons. PCA 1 and PCA 2 contributed 65% of the total variation (45% and 20%, respectively) followed by PCA 3 (12%) and PCA1 was found to be the most important in the separation of the accessions. Accession 160 showed distinguished variation in the dendrogram for all the studied parameters.