Investigation of the Agromorphological Diversity of some Iranian Stands of Cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) under Climatic Conditions of Mashhad

Variety of cultivars is considered one of the important factors affecting performance. Therefore, accurate and correct identification of the genotypes of its seeds is very useful, in addition to being necessary in plant breeding programs; it is also very effective in preserving genetic reserves. The present research was conducted to investigate the cumin landraces in diversity terms of yield components and to select landraces with suitable potential for selectivity.

To investigate the phenological, morphological, and functional characteristics of native cumin stands, a study was conducted at the Targh research station in 2019-2018 on 30 native stands of cumin in the form of a randomized complete block design with three replications. The Characteristics of the number of days to 50 % flowering and at physiological and seed maturity, plant height, branch number, number of umbels per plant, number of umbellate per umbel, number of flowers in umbellate, biomass, and yield were measured.

A significant difference was observed between the landraces in all of the studied traits. Cover canopy (47-633 cm2), plant height (17.7-30 cm), branch number (6.3-62.3), number of umbels per plant (5.7-27.3), number of umbellate per umbel (3.17-5.33), number of flowers in umbellate (4.30-5.85), biomass (1.92-17.38 g), seed yield (0.129-6.72 g) per plant, were varied. Based on the results of the clustering, the landraces were placed in three separate groups. The Cluster grouping and comparison of the average of the groups with the total average showed that the landraces belonging to the second group, including Arak 6 (15316), Boshruyeh (38904), and Markazi 15 (14654) in morphological traits, yield components, and grain yield compared to the total average and other groups were the best. Cumin landraces belonging to the third group had a lower average than the total average in most traits. The results showed that among the landraces that showed the highest level of resistance to Fusarium disease, Ayask (C103) from the third group and Khash (22074) from the first group had a yield of 11 grams per plant. However, despite the high yield rate in the Ayask, due to the effectiveness of other traits in addition to performance, this landrace cannot be recommended for breeding programs.

Considerable variation was observed between landraces in terms of studied traits. The highest amount of grain yield was observed in the khash belonging to the first group and the Boshruyeh from the second group, and due to the relatively high resistance of these landraces to Fusarium disease. So, we proposed that as selected landraces for breeding programs.