Vicia faba germplasm collection in eastern Transylvania

Abstract

Vicia faba accessions have been collected from peasants in Eastern Transylvania in the period 1981-1985. The crop is cultivated mostly in the eastern part of Harghita District. The majority of the accessions were of equina and major types or mixtures of these two. Two accessions of minor type have been collected: one of these is a new introduction, the other is uncertain. Light testa colour and compressed seed form is frequent and characteristic for the accessions used traditionally as human food, too. A part of these accessions has been evaluated in the Agrobotanical Garden Cluj-Napoca, for seed yield, seed health, uniform maturity, number of branches per plant, plant height, legume form, legume length, number of seeds legume, seed colour, hilum colour, seed form. Our results enlarge and reinforce previous findings regarding the persistence and spreading of traditional faba bean cultivation in Romania. Chorological data of the present collection have been codified according to the principles outlined in 1985 in the Working Catalogue of the Agrobotanical Garden Cluj-Napoca