Genetic Variations of Potential Dwarfism in Iranian Pomegranates

Genetically dwarf fruit trees offer numerous cultural advantages to commercial producers. Dwarfing pomegranate rootstocks is a new idea and critical in modern pomegranate production to control vigor, increase yield, precocity, and reduce costs in orchard management. Iran as a centre of diversity and production of pomegranate have more than 760 accessions of pomegranate in the Yazd pomegranate collection. This diverse and valuable genetic resource has potential for further genetic improvement, in particular, selecting for dwarf pomegranates. In this study, 19 cultivars of Iranian pomegranate were evaluated based on growth habit and vegetative characteristics (such as number of suckers, trunk diameter, skin diameter, internode length, current year shoot growth, shoot angel, tree height and width) to choose potentially dwarf pomegranate cultivars. Results showed that there were significant differences among cultivars in all measured trait. The tree height and width, current year shoot growth and internodes length were within the range 1.97 - 4.6 m, 1.53 – 4 m, 15 - 41.5 cm and 2 – 3.33 cm, respectively. The number of suckers varied from 1.33 - 215, trunk diameter varied from 61-121.33 mm, skin diameter varied from 1.55 - 3.24 mm, and shoot angel from 46.6-90 °. Moreover, high correlations were observed between tree height and internode length (r=-0.56 p=0.0001). In general, based on the measured characteristics, ‘Malas 1 Saravan’ was the most dwarf cultivars having potential to use as dwarfing rootstock or as parent material to be used in further breeding programs for dwarf pomegranate cultivars or dwarfing rootstocks.