Study On Alfalfa Varieties Introduction

Alfalfa, the king of pasture, has the advantage of wide adaptability, high forage yield andprotein content, and plays a key role in ecological construction and agricultural restructuring.In order to select superior alfalfa varieties on the arid and semi-arid loess hilly-gully region,we used alfalfa cultivar Shanbei as control to evaluate the overall quality and productionperformance of ten introduced alfalfa cultivars in phenophase, grass production, stem-leafratio and nutritional components. These results will provide a solid basis for introducingsuperior alfalfa varieties to the arid and semi-arid loess hilly-gully region.1. All test varieties can complete the first growth year at the test region. Based on differentgrowth periods, the Sandeli, WL-323, and WL-232varieties show the earliest emergence ofseedlings. All test varieties enters the branching stage earlier than control. The GoldenEmpress enters the branching stage first, and the Pondus enters the branching stage the latest.All test varieties enter the budding stage earlier than the reference alfalfa, with WL-323beingthe earliest and Pondus the latest.The Golden Empress, Sandeli, and AmeriGraze401are theearliest among all test varieties that enter the flowering stage. All test varieties are higher thanthe reference alfalfa, with Sandeli being the highest, and Alfaking being the shortest. All testvarieties enter the seedling establishment period earlier than the reference alfalfa withPhabulous, Sandeli, and WL-323being the earliest, and Giant-201and Pondus being the latest.All test varieties proves the capability to survive winter in the test region. The Sandeli andWL-323enjoy the highest winter surviving rate (97%) and the Empress2000has the lowestwinter surviving rate (90%).2. Sandeli had the largest hay yield (2739.3Kg/Mu) in three years experiments, which is542.4Kg/Mu higher than control. The hay yield of Phabulous in three years is2652.9Kg/Mu,456Kg/Mu higher than control. The hay yield of Phabulous The Empress2000and Gaint-201have the lowest three-year hay yields, which are2153.7Kg/Mu and2191.2Kg/Mu,respectively. The results demonstrated that the hay yields of Sandeli and Phabulous aredisparate from (much higher than) those of other varieties.3. The crude protein contents of all test varieties at the same stage are different. Accordingto the Legume Forage Hay Quality Grading Standards (NY/T1574-2007), seven of tenvarieties are superfine pastures. The crude protein contents of Sandeli (20.7%), WL-323(20.6%), Phabulous (20.2%), and Empress2000(19.8%) are higher than that of the reference alfalfa (19.8%), and the crude protein contents of the rest of the test varieties are lower thanthat of the reference alfalfa.Our results suggested that the Sandeli and Phabulous varieties outperform other varietiesand can be largely applied to the loess hilly-gully regions in Shaanxi and neighboringprovinces.