Common wild oat (Avena fatua L.) spikelet and seed morphology variation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Intraspecific variation in spikelet and seed morphology was assessed for eleven populations of common wild oat (Avena fatua L.). Spikelet lengths varied between 1.13 and 1.81 cm, with highly significant differences being recorded between most analyzed populations. Lemma color varied between ocher, light-brown, brown and black, with the majority of analyzed populations (63.64 %) having predominately (≥50%) brown lemma color. Percent of lemma hairiness was also assessed and yielded some highly significant differences between the populations. Length of the awn varied between 2.34 and 4.74 cm, with differences in mean values of awn length per population being statistically significant between several analyzed populations. The angle between the awn and the dorsal surface of lemma was also studied and varied between 85.76° and 140.71°. Analysis of grain length has shown highly significant differences only between the populations from Bačevci (BIH02) and Aleksandrovac (BIH03), when compared with other nine analyzed wild oat populations, while contrary to this, grain mass was shown to be a highly significant factor when comparing wild oat populations. Consequently, it can be theorized that the wide range of variation documented for certain seed morphology traits results from a high local differentiation potential of wild oat populations.