Serradellas are promising alternative annual legumes for permanent, temperate pastures. However, many current cultivars exhibit unstable flowering dates relative to subterranean clovers. This is a potential risk for seed production and persistence. Early and late maturing cultivars of yellow serradella, French serradella and subterranean clover were subjected to six vernalisation (VRN) treatments (0, 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 weeks at 5℃) and four photoperiods (PPD) (8, 12, 16 or 20 hours) to determine how these stimuli affected flowering time, as measured by nodes to first flower. The cultivars differed in their responses to VRN and PPD treatments. The flowering time of early maturing cultivars was insensitive (cv. King) or weakly responsive (cvv. Eliza, Izmir) to photoperiod and required 0-1 week of VRN to minimise the time to flowering. In contrast, late season types (cvv. Avila, Serratas, Goulburn) had stronger photoperiod and vernalisation responses with longer photoperiods required to hasten flowering when vernalisation was <3 weeks. These results inform selection of cultivars with appropriate flowering times and improved flowering date stability.

Item Type:	Refereed Conference Paper
Keywords:	pasture, legumes, persistence, stability, phenology, serradella, flowering
Research Division:	Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences
Research Group:	Crop and pasture production
Research Field:	Agronomy
Objective Division:	Animal Production and Animal Primary Products
Objective Group:	Pasture, browse and fodder crops
Objective Field:	Sown pastures (excl. lucerne)
UTAS Author:	Smith, R (Dr Rowan Smith)
UTAS Author:	Penrose, B (Dr Beth Penrose)
ID Code:	148802
Year Published:	In Press
Deposited By:	TIA - Research Institute
Deposited On:	2022-02-11
Last Modified:	2023-02-22
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