Purpose Leucaenais a king of high quality forage with high protein content. Selecting germplasm resources with high biomass, nutrition value or breeding potential was important to the breeding and utilization of Leucaena under planting conditions in tropical areas.
Method The contents of biomass, dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fat (EE), crude fibre (CF), ash, extract (NFE), phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca) of Leucaena collected from different area of the world were determined and evaluated.
Results The biomass CV of 48 Leucaena germplasm was 16.315%. CIAT17488 had the highest mean biomass per plant, which was 301.968 g, and was the 159.922% of the biomass mean value of all germplasm. The range of DM was from 90.436% to 93.916%, and its CV was 1.108%, which was the minimum value in those of eight nutrition indicators. The content CV of CP, NFE, P, Ca were 9.995%–13.093%, and their content ranges were 17.229%–26.281%, 29.450%–55.648%, 0.130%–0.220%, 0.825%–1.332%, respectively. The contents of CF and ash, of which CV were 24.348% and 20.921%, had a range from 10.027%–29.769% and 3.244%–7.374%. The variance of EE content was the highest, whose value was 31.559% with the range from 1.963% to 9.143%.
Conclusion Genetic resources in 48 experimental materials are abundant. CIAT18479 is a high-quality germplasm with the highest CP, ash, and higher content of P and Ca; CIAT17488 is high-biomass germplasm with higher nutrition. They can be utilized in breeding the new cultivar with high quality or high biomass directly.
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