Morphological Diversity of Seven Fenugreek Landraces in Iran

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is an herbaceous, endemic, valuable medicinal and aromatic plant belongs to Fabaceae family. It has been cultivated since ancient times in Iran for both medicinal and culinary purposes. Present study was conducted to survey morphological characteristics of seven Iranian fenugreek landraces including Mobarakeh , Shahreza , Gaz , Ardestan , Khansar , Kashan and Ahvaz . Results indicated that, landraces did show significant differences in stem length, pod length, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight and stem diameter (p≥0.05). Among these seven landraces, the highest level of shoot fresh weight was measured in Shahreza landrace and the highest level of shoot dry weight was calculated in Khansar landrace. The Ahvaz landrace had the highest level of stem length (410 mm) and the Khansar landrace had the lowest level of stem length (310 mm). The highest levels of pod length and stem diameter were measured in Khansar landrace with corresponding values of 142 and 2.85 mm. The lowest level of pod length was observed in Gaz landrace (78 mm) and the lowest level of stem diameter was observed in Mobarakeh landrace (1.4 mm). Based on these results, there is a considerable diversity in studied fenugreek landraces that can be utilized in its breeding programs in the future.