Evaluation of Industrial of Crop Diversity in Iran

In order to investigate biodiversity of industrial crop in Iran, an investigation was made based on the statistical data available on acreage and production of this crop in the country. Cultivated area of industrial crop from 29 provinces were analyzed and Shannon biodiversity index was calculated. The highest biodiversity index compare to the total crop species was observed in Golestan, Semnan and Isfehan. Higher biodiversity in these provinces is due to higher cultivated area for potato, sugar beet, cotton, tobacco, and oil crop. The lowest biodiversity was observed for Sistan and Balochestan and also Ilam provinces. In these tow provinces, only potato, oil crop and tobacco were cultivated. Cluster analysis for the ratio of cultivated area for the functional group to total industrial crop acreage in different provinces showed that at %75 similarity level, Golestan, Ghom, Mazandaran, Kohkiloueh were located on one group and Azarbijan, Kermanshah, Ilam and Khozestan were located in other group. Ghazvin, Yazd, Semnan, Kerman, Fars, Markazi and Khorasan were similar in this respect.