Delta
1. Maternal-line selection was used in developing Delta. Selection was practiced for tolerance to root and crown rots, leafspot diseases and leafhopper yellowing. Parentage traces to plants selected in 1948 and 1949 from an old field of Dakota 12 alfalfa near Leland, Mississippi, and from other old alfalfa fields in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
2. The Lower Mississippi Valley area of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi; also, the Red River Valley of Louisiana. For hay and/or grazing purposes.
3. Purple to light blue flower. Relatively uniform in height, erectness, flower color and stem size.
4. The Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station will assume responsibility for the maintenance of breeder seed. There will be three generations of seed increase beyond breeder seed -- foundation, registered, and certified. Foundation seed supplies will be distributed through Foundation Seed Stocks, Mississippi State University, State College, Mississippi. Certification of seed fields shall be limited to stands not exceeding 6 years of age.
5. 1967.