Genetic Diversity and Heritability of Fruit Traits and Oil Content in Selected Almond Progenies and their Parents

Diversity is an essential issue for fruit crop breeding programs and improving selection efficiency. This study was targeted to investigate the genetic diversity and heritability of fruit parameters and oil content in almond progenies and their parents. The results exhibited notable genetic variation among the studied progenies and their parents. The highest phenotypic and genotypic variance coefficients were 13.05 and 11.18 for fruit length in in different genotypes, respectively. Also the highest broad sense heritability belonged to nut weight of genotype (0 and 89%). The lowest phenotypic and genotypic variance coefficients was 0.19 and 0.15, respectively, which was observed in kernel weight and the lowest broad sense heritability belonged to fruit thickness (68%). For oil content, which is important for qualitative improvement in breeding programs, there was a significant difference between examined progenies and their parents. Finally, in this study, it was found that some of the progenies were high in oil, for example, the hybrid A11-18 had 63.97% of oil that could be used in almond development programs.