Characterization of 169 diverse pea germplasm accessions for agronomic performance, Mycosphaerella blight resistance and nutritional profile

Improved agronomic performance and nutritional profile are among the major objectives in pea breeding, but the narrow gene pool available in pea germplasm has slowed progress. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate 169 diverse pea accessions from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Australia and Canada for agronomic performance, Mycosphaerella blight resistance and nutritional profile under western Canadian growing conditions. In general, eastern European accessions required less days to flower, had higher protein, acid detergent fibre and neutral detergent fibre concentrations in the seeds, compared to western European and Canadian pea accessions, which had better lodging resistance, less days to maturity, higher grain yield and seed weight, greater resistance to Mycosphaerella blight and powdery mildew and higher starch concentration in the seeds. Significant correlations were observed between different traits. Principal component analysis revealed significant variation among traits with the first four principal components explaining 68 % of the total variation. The wide range of variation in agronomic performance, Mycosphaerella blight resistance and nutritional profile detected will provide useful parents for pea breeding.