Evaluation of Morphological and Phytochemical Diversity in Iranian Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) Accessions by Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Coriandrum sativum L. is a medicinal, aromatic, annual plant of the Apiaceae family. The seeds and vegetative body of this plant contain essential oil that is used in cosmetics, health, chocolate and soft drinks. It has shown antispasmodic, antidiarrheal, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties. The basic requirement for plant breeding programs is a diverse germplasm that provides necessary facilities for breeding species with desirable features. Therefore, accurate identification of genotypes is considered as a prerequisite in this manner. The morphological and phytochemical characteristics are the important traits that have been used for diversity research.

In order to evaluate genetic diversity of coriander based on morphological, antioxidant and physiological traits, 12 coriander accessions were collected from different parts of the country. This experiment was conducted based on a randomized complete block design with three replications in research farm of University of Mohaghegh Ardabili in April 2020. The morphological and antioxidant traits were studied also the seeds of accession were dried in the shade. The 50 g of dried seeds of different accessions were exposed to hydro-distillation to extract the essential oil by Clevenger apparatus for 3 hours. The essential oils were kept in the dark condition at 4 ◦C, and then 1 µl of them were injected into a Thermoquest- Finnigan GC-MS to determine the type of the constituents. The compositions were identified based on the comparison of mass spectra and NIST and Wiley libraries.

The Results of morphological, antioxidant and physiological studies showed that the mashhad accession had the highest leaf area (2.8 cm2), fresh and dry weight of aerial part of plants (4.52 and 0.56 g respectively) and leaf fresh weight. The meshkinshahr and mianeh had the highest antioxidant activity.The Results of physiological studies showed that the essential oil compounds were high variable and mashhad accessions were best in Butanoic acid (2.56 %), Limonene (0.44 %), Linaloloxide (1.7 %),Thymol (0.08 %),Geraniol (0.38 %),alpha.-Methyl-.alpha (0.54 %), Eicosane (0.16 %) and Isophytol (0.2 %).Correlation coefficients among traits showed that Isophytol had highest correlation with Geraniol (0.98) and minimum correlation was observed between Camphor and Butanoic acid (0.001). Factor analysis indicated that the five factors explained 100 of the variability among the accessions. Cluster analysis based on Euclidean distance, divided the accessions into three major groups. The results suggested that there is a considerable genetic variation among coriander accessions.

Main purpose of this study was determination of morphological, antioxidant and physiological diversity among coriander accessions in Iran. Significant differences were found among the accessions in all of compounds that were measured.