Kifah Gharzeddin’s research while affiliated with McGill University and other places

Breeding methods applied to faba bean are either based on self pollination by developing lines under insect proof cages or based on open pollination by developing lines under natural pollination conditions. The purpose of this research is to compare the performance of pedigree selection method (PSM) as a self pollinated breeding method and recurrent selection methods (RSM) and synthetics as an open pollinated method. Eleven diverse accessions were used to develop in F6 generation 24 lines using PSM, 35 lines using RSM and nine synthetics from 2012 to 2016. The different developed lines were evaluated in two winter cropping seasons (2014/2015) and (2016/ 2017) in an alpha design with two replications. Significant differences among lines and among breeding methods were obtained for biological and grain yield, days to flowering, days to maturity, branches per plant, pods per plant, hundred seed weight. Synthetic populations had higher yield than RSM lines; whereas RSM lines revealed higher yield performance than PSM lines. Multivariate analysis indicates that most of the variation among different lines developed by different methods is due to variation in number of branches, days to flowering, biological and grain yield. Open pollinated cultivars were found to be more appropriate to increase the yield in farmers' fields and may play a critical role in conserving wild pollinators, but ensuring optimal yields might require capacity building for farmers concerning wild pollinators.

Breeding methods applied to faba bean are either based on self pollination by developing lines under insect proof cages or based on open pollination by developing lines under natural pollination conditions. The purpose of this research is to compare the performance of pedigree selection method (PSM) as a self pollinated breeding method and recurrent selection methods (RSM) and synthetics as an open pollinated method. Eleven diverse accessions were used to develop in F6 generation 24 lines using PSM, 35 lines using RSM and nine synthetics from 2012 to 2016. The different developed lines were evaluated in two winter cropping seasons (2014/2015) and (2016/ 2017) in an alpha design with two replications. Significant differences among lines and among breeding methods were obtained for biological and grain yield, days to flowering, days to maturity, branches per plant, pods per plant, hundred seed weight. Synthetic populations had higher yield than RSM lines; whereas RSM lines revealed higher yield performance than PSM lines. Multivariate analysis indicates that most of the variation among different lines developed by different methods is due to variation in number of branches, days to flowering, biological and grain yield. Open pollinated cultivars were found to be more appropriate to increase the yield in farmers' fields and may play a critical role in conserving wild pollinators, but ensuring optimal yields might require capacity building for farmers concerning wild pollinators.

Breeding methods applied to faba bean are either based on self pollination by developing lines under insect proof cages or based on open pollination by developing lines under natural pollination conditions. The purpose of this research is to compare the performance of pedigree selection method (PSM) as a self pollinated breeding method and recurrent selection methods (RSM) and synthetics as an open pollinated method. Eleven diverse accessions were used to develop in F6 generation 24 lines using PSM, 35 lines using RSM and nine synthetics from 2012 to 2016. The different developed lines were evaluated in two winter cropping seasons (2014/2015) and (2016/2017) in an alpha design with two replications. Significant differences among lines and among breeding methods were obtained for biological and grain yield, days to flowering, days to maturity, branches per plant, pods per plant, hundred seed weight. Synthetic populations had higher yield than RSM lines; whereas RSM lines revealed higher yield performance than PSM lines. Multivariate analysis indicates that most of the variation among different lines developed by different methods is due to variation in number of branches, days to flowering, biological and grain yield. Open pollinated cultivars were found to be more appropriate to increase the yield in farmers’ fields and may play a critical role in conserving wild pollinators, but ensuring optimal yields might require capacity building for farmers concerning wild pollinators.

Five populations of faba bean were advanced from F2 to F3 generations by simple recurrent selection at Terbol research station, International Centre for Agricultural Research in The Dry Areas (ICARDA), Lebanon. During the growing season summer 2013. The produced genotypes of selection were evaluated in winter 2013-2014 in order to estimate the narrow-sense heritability and genetic advance for seed yield, plant height, pods per plant and 100-seeds weight traits. The results showed that S2012-085 population was superior in heritability for seed yield (0.5), 100-seed weight (0.5) and pods per plant (0.5), while the population S2012-133 was recorded the supreme value for plant height (0.858). The results demonstrate that genetic advance for seed yield trait was varied from 53% to 72.4%, and the highest value of genetic advance for seed yield was belonged to the population S2012-018 (72.4%). Most of traits under research were recorded a moderate values of narrow sense heritability accompanied with high values of genetic advance, indicating to the importance of additive genetic variances related to the total genetic variances, Consequently, recurrent selection is very important to apply in order to improve the traits across segregated generations of faba bean.

The recurrent selection was applied on four F2 populations of faba bean at Terbol research station (ICARDA)- Lebanon, during 2013 summer season, advanced F3 populations were evaluated during 2013-2014 winter season to estimate the following indicators: phenotypic (PCV%) and genotypic (GCV%) coefficients of variation, broad sense heritability (HBS), phenotypic correlation coefficient and path coefficient for the following traits: seed yield (gr.plant-1), plant height (cm), number of seeds per plants, number of seeds per pod, days to maturity (day) and hundred seed weight (gr). Results revealed that the populations means significantly differed for all studied traits, and the population S2012-085 had the best yield value among populations under research (79.2 g.plant-1), showing the importance of such population in developing high yielding lines of faba bean by selection in advance generation, wide difference between phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variations have been detected for all traits under research, these results emphasized that the environmental factors had a high effects on the inheritance of such traits. The highest estimate of broad sense heritability (BSH) for seed yield character was recorded by the population S2012-085 (0.418). Significant positive correlations were detected between seed yield and each of number of seeds per plant (0.779) and hundred seed weight (0.391). Path coefficient analysis estimates indicated that number of seeds per plant had the highest rates of related importance on seed yield variation (86.07), followed by hundred seed weight (37.79%). These findings indicates that selection for number of seeds per plant and/or hundred seed weight would be accompanied by high yielding ability under such populations.