Karyotypic investigation no several species of Stipagrostis

Preparing appropriate information on ploidy level and karyotypic characteristics is one of the most important requirements for breeding purposes of all plant species. Regarding the importance of Stipagrostis in sand dune fixation, its drought and salinity resistance and its values as a fodder in better utilization of natural resources in arid and semi-arid areas, investigation of various aspects of this genus is necessary. In Iran, there are numerous populations and species of Stipagrostis on which little study has been done. There is not any attempt to investigate cytogenetics of the genus in Iran and world wide study on this genus is also scarce. Five populations from three species named Stipagrostis pennata, S. plumose and S. karelini were studied in this work. Two ploidy levels were observed in the populations. S. pennata was tetraploid (2n = 4x = 44) and the species S. plumose and S. karelini were diploid (2n = 2x = 22). Chromosome characteristics of the species such as long arm length (L), and Short arm length (S) were measured based on which L/S, S/L and total length of the chromosomes were obtained. Ideograms of the genotypes were also drown. Several parameters, such as TF%, DRL and S% were also estimated for comparing the karyotyps.