Evaluation of Genetic Variation of Common Fig (Ficus carica L.) in West of Iran

This study describes morphological diversity and relationship of 14 cultivars and 133 wild fig accessions from central Zagros Mountains located in the west of Iran, based on 58 morphological characters. Among all characters, secondary drooping branches, number of bark tubers, shape of central lobe, length of central lobe/length of lamina, little lateral lobes, shape of leaf without lobed, fruit shape, fruit weight, fruit neck length, fruit skin over color and fruit pulp cavity showed higher coefficient of variation (CV) indicating a high level of variation. The existence of high CV in the evaluated characters indicates that there is a high diversity among the studied cultivars and accessions. One of the important wild figs that called 'Ghir-vahshi' was found in 'Baba-Heyran 2' location showing very diverse characters. Cluster analysis divided the 147 genotypes into five main clusters. The results of principal components analysis showed that the first three components explained 33.22% of total variation in data. According to the factor analysis, eighteen factors justified about 75.62% of the total variation found among genotypes. The factor analysis showed that the most of discriminator variables were depend on leaf, fruit size and growth form. The obtained results revealed that central Zagros Mountains in the west of Iran is a rich source of fig genetic diversity which could be used for fig breeding programs.