Grass pea, historically underutilized as a forage crop, has recently attracted renewed interest due to its exceptional adaptability and minimal input demands, positioning it as a promising contributor to agricultural sustainability and food supply resilience. However, the presence of β-ODAP, a toxic amino acid, has constrained its wider adoption, highlighting the critical need for developing grass pea varieties with low β-ODAP concentrations. In this study, Türkish grass pea varieties were compared among themselves and with world materials in terms of agronomic and biochemical properties. The grass pea varieties evaluated in this study exhibited substantial morphological and chemical diversity and showed acceptable average seed yield (3.11 t ha - ¹), protein content (28.52%), and phenotypic performance. Overall, the β-ODAP concentrations (3.99 mg g - ¹) of Türkish varieties were slightly higher than those reported in previous studies worldwide. The results indicated that more recently registered variety “Duduhanım” stands out among the grass pea varieties with its earliness, low thousand grain weight, high grain yield and harvest index, and has an average value in terms of crude protein and B-ODAP content.
BAŞARAN et al. (Wed,) studied this question.