Abstract

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is a nutritious food and fodder crop. It can withstand unfavorable climatic conditions making it suitable for cultivation in wide range of environments. This work evaluated variations among fifty grass pea accessions collected from different geographic locations of Ethiopia for their β-N-oxalyl-L-α,β-diaminopropionic acid (β-ODAP) content, a neurotoxic amino acid, and assessed the diversity among them using seed storage protein profiles. The content of the antinutritional factor β-ODAP varied from 0.21% to 0.55% with a mean value of 0.36%. Six accessions showed medium level of β-ODAP (0.21-0.28%). These accessions could be potential sources for selecting and breeding grass pea verities with safe β-ODAP level. Further analysis of accessions with medium level of β-ODAP content on single plant basis might result in revealing promising lines that could be used for crop improvement. Seed protein electrophoresis resulted in 27 reproducible bands. The average gene diversity estimate (hs) was 0.192 and it ranged from 0.166 to 0.220. Cluster analysis based on genetic similarities grouped the analysed samples irrespective of their geographic origin suggesting accessions from different origins might have similar genetic background. The mean differentiation value (θII =0.09 ± 0.008) indicated that most of the total variation comes from within accession variation. The observed level of heterozygosity using seed storage proteins implicated the potential of these markers for genetic diversity assessment in Ethiopian genetic materials.

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