TRADITIONAL SEED MAINTENANCE AND ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LUCERNE LANDRACES

As for other forage crops the notion of variety is quite recent in luc erne (Medicago sativa L.). Up to 1950 in France, farmers cultivated la ndraces whose origins were geographically defined. Seed production was a by-product of forage production. Usually, seeds were harvested on t he second or third crop, in old lucerne fields. Natural selection crea ted landraces adapted to local conditions. In some years, climatic con ditions, especially in northern regions, were unfavourable to seed pro duction. In the exchanges and trades of seeds between French regions, the genetic origin of the seeds was omitted, the geographical origin w as only mentioned. Even if France usually exported lucerne seeds, impo rts occurred in bad years. Seeds were imported from European countries and from North and South America. Varieties from America were poorly adapted to the French conditions for forage production. These foreign varieties have probably intercrossed with the local landraces but no d ata is available to know to what extent. Among the various French land races, five main types were defined using morphological characters: 'F lamande' in the north, three types ('Poitou', 'Marais de Lucon', 'Mara is de Challans') in the west, and 'Provence' in the south. These landr aces have been widely used in breeding since 1950. Even though these f ive landraces are, up to now, maintained, the other landraces have pro bably been lost (no more cultivated and not in genebanks), replaced by registered varieties.