Estimation of ODAP contents and heritability of quantitative traits in grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) accessions from North-Western Ethiopia

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is a popular legume in Ethiopia that serves as a protein source to replace chickpeas and field peas. It is a great way to address nutrition and food security in the growing population. However, one of the major issues is that it produces Oxalyl diaminopropionic acid (ODAP), which causes neurological disorders in humans and animals. The study aimed to measure the ODAP, heritability, and genetic advance of quantitative traits in northwest Ethiopian grass pea accessions. The field experiment was carried out during the 2019 rainy season, utilizing a 5x5 lattice design to assess the ODAP and non-yield quantitative traits of grass pea accessions at Ebonyi State University, Nigeria. This study showed a highly significant difference between accessions for all traits except petiole length. This finding discovered high heritability, genetic advance, genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation for ODAP, branch bearing length, number of secondary branches, days to flowering, plant height, and primary branch length. The average ODAP value was 0.44 percent, with values ranging from 0.17 to 0.90 percent. Only two of the 25 accessions 26627 and 238945 displayed safe ODAP values of <0.2. These findings may be important for the development of low-ODAP grass-pea cultivars.