Performance of a Spanish white clover (Trifolium repensL.) population in New Zealand

Abstract

A Spanish white clover population was compared with New Zealand white clover (cv. ‘Grasslands Huia’) at four locations in New Zealand. Material grown at Palmerston North as mown swards indicated that both populations had similar seasonal growth patterns except that the Spanish cycle was displaced approximately 2 months behind that of the New Zealand material. The New Zealand line was thus superior in spring and early summer and the Spanish line in autumn and early winter. Four spaced-plant experiments at Palmerston North in different years supported this pattern, although they showed a much greater winter advantage for the Spanish line than did mown swards. Parallel spaced-plant experiments at Lincoln and Gore gave a similar pattern, although the Spanish material was generally inferior to New Zealand material at these sites. Small growth score advantages for Spanish were recorded occasionally in autumn and early winter. Similar spaced-plant experiments at Kaikohe revealed small growth score advantages for Spanish in early winter, but otherwise the Spanish material was inferior. There was no compelling evidence that Spanish white clover was superior in cool temperatures, or any indication of any single environmental factor which might govern the observed asynchrony of growth cycles. Results indicate that the poorer than expected performance of hybrids between Spanish and New Zealand white clovers in central and southern parts of the South Island was due at least in part, to inferiority of the Spanish parental line at those sites.