Evaluation of morphological traits of leaf and fruit in Ziziphus mauritiana L. genotypes in southern Iran

Ziziphus mauritiana L., a perennial, evergreen plant from the Rhamnaceae family has 2n=2X=48 chromosomes. It is considered among the plants of tropical and semi-tropical regions, and its geographical distribution includes Abyssinia, North Africa, Arabia, warm parts of Iran and India. The spread of this plant in Iran is mostly in the western and southern regions, including the provinces of Lorestan, Khuzestan, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan. Ziziphus mauritiana L., is one of the most resistant fruit trees to harsh environmental conditions, especially drought, dehydration, salinity and high temperature. This plant is well adapted to different environmental conditions and grows from lowlands to heights of a thousand meters above sea level. Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana L.) is one of the tropical and subtropical fruit trees resistant to rigorous environmental conditions, especially drought, dehydration, salinity and high temperature.

In order to carry out this research, the leaves, fruits and kernels of 14 Ziziphus mauritiana L., genotypes, which were implemented in Minab Agricultural Research Center (located in Hormozgan province) in 2012, in the form of a completely randomized block design with 3 replications, as mother trees supplying grafts were collected and evaluated in University of Zabol in 2016.  Sampling was done in two stages to measure quantitative traits. The first stage took place in the beginning of February 2016 to measure the traits related to the leaves and the second stage after the ripening of the fruit, in late March of the same year, to measure the traits related to the fruit and kernel. The genotypes that were examined in this experiment were named according to the name of each city or village from which they were collected.At the beginning of Bahman, which is the end of the flowering stage of the trees and the beginning of the beginning of closing the fruits, samples of fresh leaves of the trees were randomly taken from the middle parts, in three repetitions and each repetition included 20 samples (from 4 bases and 5 leaves per base). , were collected and during that traits such as leaf length (centimeters), leaf width (centimeters), leaf tail length (centimeters), fresh weight (grams) and leaf dry weight (grams) were measured and recorded. After the physiological ripening of the fruits, in late March (early fruits) to late April (late fruits), the samples were randomly collected in three groups of 10 healthy fruits that were harvested from different parts of the tree, and traits such as Fruit length (cm), fruit width (cm), fruit weight (grams), kernel length (cm), kernel width (cm), kernel thickness (cm), kernel fresh weight (grams), kernel dry weight (grams) , fruit flesh weight (grams) and production rate (kilograms) of each tree were measured.In this research, the morphological traits of leaf, fruit and core of 14 genotypes of jujube (available in south of Iran) has been evaluated using in a Completely random blockdesign with three replications.

Analysis of Variance showed that all the examined traits related to leaves between genotypes had a significant difference at the 1% probability level. Traits such as leaf length, leaf width and leaf tail length showed great variation due to the low coefficient of variation. Simple correlation coefficients revealed that there is a significant correlation between some of the measured traits. Therefore, there is a high correlation between leaf length and leaf width (+0.8), core width with core thickness (+0.87) and fresh leaf weight with fruit rate (-0.43). Considering that the genotypes along the Minab area (22.08) have the highest diversity in the traits, and in among the Minab area, the Talar genotype (18.81) has the highest diversity in the characteristics.In this study, 14 genotypes from different cities of the southern provinces of the country were investigated in the form of a completely randomized block design. After analyzing the data and that the main purpose of measuring the morphological traits was to identify the superior genotype or genotypes in order to use them in breeding programs, therefore some key traits such as leaf length and width, fruit shape, fruit flesh weight and the amount of tree production in Sal, which has the most diversity among the studied genotypes and has the highest percentage of diversity among all the examined traits, and finally understanding such a high diversity will be useful and effective in managing and preserving the germplasm of this plant and with Paying attention to the fact that the genotypes near the Minab region (22.08) have the highest diversity in the evaluated traits and in the Minab region, the Talar genotype (18.81) has the highest diversity in the evaluated characteristics, so it is suggested that in order to create a line or variety To be used in addition to Talar genotype as one of the main bases.

It is suggested that for the creation of the new or top line of jujube have to use the Talar genotype as one of the main foundations.