Morphological diversity of blackberries in some regions in Mazandaran province

Blackberry diversity is high in Iran due to its wild and natural populations especially in south of Caspian Sea. However it has not been investigated before. The goal of this work was to evaluate some wild populations of black berry in Mazandaran province of Iran. At first, region and then location of blackberries plants identified and the traits of leaf, stem, spin, flower, fruit quantity and quality evaluated based on blackberry descriptor via three replications. Results showed that, there was negative significant correlation between the symptoms of pest and diseases with spin number and direction, cross section of stem and terminal leaflet type. Based on the results, four main factor included spin, fruit quantity, plant growth habit and flowering traits explained more than 95% of observed variance. Spin related traits including spin size and direction, hairiness of shoot, stem cross section and fruit and flower size, explained 50% of total variance. Results of cluster analysis divided genotypes into two groups with 100% difference. The Qaemshahr genotypes distanced from each other and located in separated groups whereas belonged to one region. This indicated the variation in genotypes that is used by blackberry local harvesters. In the second group the genotypes separated from each other based on their geographical origin.