CREATION AND EVALUATION OF COMPLEX HYBRID POPULATIONS OF MEADOW CLOVER ACCORDING TO THE MAIN ECONOMIC AND BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The research was conducted in 2022-2024 on the basis of the North Caucasus Scientific Research Institute of Mining and Foothill Agriculture, a branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science of the Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. Complex hybrid populations were formed, and collection samples of clover were evaluated according to a set of economically valuable traits for creating varieties for fodder purposes. The basis for the study was promising plants, which were sown in a wide range and individually in a row. Weak and underdeveloped plants were mowed down by negative selection. During the budding period and the beginning of flowering, the accounting of economically valuable signs was carried out by cutting plants at a height of 10-12 cm. In the first year of use, synthetic populations had no significant differences from diploid controls in terms of the number of stems in the bush and leaves on one stem. In the second year of use, the number of stems in plants of medium-ripened and early-maturing synthetic populations was 1.2 times higher in the first mowing and 1.1-1.4 times in the second mowing than in the diploid control. The excess of synthetic populations in the number of stems over the tetraploid control was 14.2-20.3% in the first year of use, and in the second year of use in the 1st mowing - 8.4–23.0% and in the 2nd mowing - 10-50%, which indicates a more intensive formation of stems after mowing in tetraploid plants of synthetic populations. In the second year of use, the synthetic populations in the first mowing exceeded the diploid controls by 1.5-2.9 times, the tetraploid control by 1.1–1.8 times; the absolute foliage of these populations in the second mowing was 1.2-3.4 times higher than that of the diploid controls and 1.2-2.2 times higher than that of the tetraploid control. According to the absolute foliage, a late-maturing population stands out. The best biomechanical mixture for this indicator was the middle-aged population.