Lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) is the most common forage species in the world. In Italy it is grown on c. 1 million ha and is one of the most important crops for restoring soil fertility and for low-input agriculture. Landraces are still common (73% of the seed market) and 14 are registered in the National Register of Varieties. However, by 2002, landraces will be removed from the Register, seed certification will terminate and seed marketing will be forbidden. The collection, agronomic evaluation and characterization of farmer-landraces, still widespread in central Italy, were the objectives of the present work, particularly of the most important morphological and physiological characters useful for their identification. From 1993 to 1995, 20 landraces were evaluated for dry matter and seed yield in dense stands, and compared with Casalina, a local landrace, Boreal, an improved variety, and Italia Centrale, the registered landrace from central Italy. From 1992 to 1994, six landraces were evaluated as spaced plants and 48 morphophysiological characters were recorded.

Several landraces, not differing from the local control, were significantly more productive than Boreal. Univariate analysis of variance indicated that although differences were found in several characters, they could not be used to distinguish between populations. Discriminant analysis was more powerful, and five landraces out of six were clearly distinguished, with an average of correct classification of individuals in the group of origin as high as 82%.

The ex situ and in situ conservation of lucerne landraces, their potential role in future breeding programmes, and the most important characters to be used in discriminant analysis in the landrace/variety characterization of allogamous species in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium are discussed.