Global warming has increased interest in growing soya in Poland. Variable weather conditions during the vegetation seasons, however, still make its cultivation potentially risky. In this study we wanted to assess how contrasting climate conditions influence on seed yield, 1000 seed weight and other important physical traits, as well as on contents of nutrients, dietary fibre constituents, trypsin inhibitor and phenolic components in nine soybean genotypes of different earliness. The field experiments were conducted in two consecutive vegetation seasons at Radzików, located in central Poland. Comprehensive seed characteristics of physical and chemical traits allowed to identify the best varieties for different end-uses, food or feed. A significant effect of variety and year of cultivation were observed for all evaluated traits. With the exception for the length of vegetation period, seed yield, seed coat and soluble non-starch polysaccharide content, significant interactions between variety and year of cultivation were found for the remaining traits. Weather conditions, such as very low precipitation with an average temperature above the multi-year average temperature in the month of July, when pod and seed is in full development, had a negative effect on all seed traits evaluated, regardless of variety earliness.

Lodging is the major factor that determines whether pea (Pisum sativum L.) can be mechanically harvested. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the relationship between stem mechanical parameters (diameter, stem wall thickness, stiffness [rigidity], and maximum self-weight moment [stem strength]) and lodging in pea. Three years of data on stem mechanical parameters and 2 yr of data on lodging resistance were collected on the 'Carneval' x 'MP1401' pea cultivars and Wt10245 x Wt11238 lines. Mechanical parameters were measured separately for three stem sections: lower, middle, and upper. Nine quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with stem mechanical parameters were identified in the Carneval x MP1401 genetic map. Eight QTL associated with stem mechanical parameters were identified in the Wt10245 x Wt11238 genetic map. These results confirmed QTL for lodging resistance found previously, especially in regards to located in chr5LG3 close to the A004 marker. Quantitative trait loci for stem diameter and stem strength of the upper and lower stem colocated with the Rfs marker in chr5LG3. A plant height QTL was detected close to AB141 marker, 2 cM (3.3 Mbp) from the Le gene. These results enable identification of pea genomic regions associated with agriculturally important traits and provide a foundation for further research to improve lodging resistance in pea.

The main purpose of this work was to analyse the morphological, phenological and agronomical variability among common bean local populations from The National Centre for Plant Genetic Resources, Polish Genebank, in order to know the relation among them, and to identify potentially useful accessions for future production and breeding. A considerable genotypic variation for number of seeds per plant, number of pods per plant and weight of seeds per plant were found. Studied bean accessions differed significantly in terms of thousand seeds weight (TSW) as well as severity of bacterial halo blight and anthracnose, the major bean diseases. The lowest genotypic diversity was found for the percentage of protein in the seeds, the length of the vegetation period and lodging. The cluster analysis allowed identification of five groups of bean accessions. Genotypes from the first cluster (POLPOD 98-77, KOS 002 and Raba cv.) and from the second cluster (WUKR 06-573a, KRA 4, WUKR 06-0534 together with Prosna cv.) are of the highest usefulness for breeding purposes. There was no grouping of local populations depending on region of origin.

Ocenę zróżnicowania genotypowego parametrów technologicznych nasion w tym czasu gotowania przeprowadzono dla odmian grochu siewnego z Krajowego Rejestru. Nasiona pochodziły ze zbioru z dwóch kolejnych sezonów wegetacyjnych w Radzikowie (centralna Polska). W ocenie uwzględniano następujące parametry: masę 1000 nasion (MTN), procentowy udział łuski, zawartość białka, zawartość popiołu, pojemność hydratacyjną nasion, elektroprzewodnictwo roztworów po moczeniu nasion oraz czas gotowania. Stwierdzono istotność różnic genotypowych, lat zbioru oraz współdziałania genotypy × lata dla każdej z badanych cech nasion. Najwyższy współczynnik zmienności międzyodmianowej (CV%) stwierdzono dla czasu gotowania (24,1 i 22,3 odpowiednio dla CG 50% i CG 80%), następnie dla elektroprzewodnictwa roztworów po moczeniu (15,8) i masy 1000 nasion (10,0). Zidentyfikowano odmiany o skrajnie odbiegających wartościach dla poszcze¬gólnych cech. Istotność współdziałania wskazuje na różną reakcję odmian na warunki sezonu wegetacyjnego. Analiza skupień metodą Warda, z zastosowaniem kwadratu odległości euklidesowej jako miary odległości, pozwoliła wydzielić 4 grupy jednorodne pod względem 8 cech nasion. Uzyskane wyniki mogą być wykorzystane przez hodowców roślin w procesie tworzenia nowych odmian.

Seeds col lected from 10 cultivars and lines of Pisum sativum of both 'afila' and normal fo liage type, in oc ulated in field by Mycosphaerella pinodes and Phoma pinodella, were eval u ated for in ci dence of fungi re sponsi ble for Ascochyta blight.Also seed ger mi na tion and con tam i na tion by other fungi were con sid ered.Sur face ster il ized seeds were plated on Coon agar me dium.A sam ple con tains 50 seeds.Data were taken af ter 8 days of in cu ba tion.Fre quency of spe cies oc cur rence de pended not only on char ac ters of cultivars and lines, weather con di tions dur ing 1998-2001, but on in oc u la tion treat ment.Clear re sponse be tween cultivars and lines to tested fac tors was noted.Seeds of nor mal leaved line 344/87/3 and cv.Ru bin were the most in hab ited by all fungi, and ger mi nated very poorly.Seeds of eight cultivars and lines, in clud ing cvs: Kwestor, Agra, Miko, were less in fected and better ger mi nated.Al most 40% of non-ger mi nated seeds were in hab ited by var ious fungi, but cultivars and lines dif fer ences were not clear.Seed in fec tion by ascochyta blight fungi was rather low, reach ing from 2.26 -11.34 per cent, a mean 4.81, but al ways the high est for M. pinodes.Per cent age of con tam i nated seeds by other fungi, mainly saprobic, was al ways higher, even 5 times, with an av er age 16.73%.The best for seed ger mi na tion was grow ing sea son of 2000, while for seed in fes ta tion, non-ger minated and ger mi nated, 2001.

Garden pea Varietal Susceptibility to Mycosphaerella pinodes and its Effect on Yield Components of Single Plants The susceptibility of 21 garden pea genotypes to Mycosphaerella pinodes was evaluated in a two years study with inoculation under controlled conditions and in field experiments. The tested genotypes differed significantly in their susceptibility to seedling foot rot and leaf and stem blight caused by M. pinodes under these tests. Average scores of leaf infection in laboratory testing were higher comparing to the degree of infection in field conditions with inoculation. The genotypes which were rated susceptible to foliar infection were also susceptible to stem infection, with the severity of stem infection being much lower. No significant correlation was obtained between foliar symptoms severity and seedling foot rot necrotic index for garden pea genotypes. Deleterious effects of the inoculation with M. pinodes in field experiments on all yield components of pea plants parameters were observed. The pathogen caused 14.6% reduction of number of pods per plant, 17.3% reduction of number of seed per plant, 23.5% reduction of seed weight per plant and 7.8% decrease of 1000 seed weight in comparison with protected controls. There were also quite large differences between the years of testing as well as among pea genotypes in reduction of yield components. Genotypes Mieszko and Jurand showed the lowest reduction of seed weight per plant and appeared to be more tolerant to M. pinodes among the tested. Overall, five of tested genotypes (Kadona, ZIF 2401, Juko Nike and Deko) were considered as moderately susceptible. The remaining were either susceptible or highly susceptible (Cud Kelwedonu, Pionier, Markus, Kosynier, Duet and Hetman). The obtained results will be useful for breeders in selecting the components for a crossing programme.