Identification and Evaluation of Superior Local Plum and Prune Genotypes to Select Suitable Cultivars in Isfahan Province

Iran is one of the centers of diversity for plant species and has an important undiscovered plant patrimony. Due to the geographical location of Iran it causes the confluence of other diversity centers (such as India and China from East, Central Asia and around the Black Sea to the north and North West and Central Africa of the Southwest). Plum and prune are economically important products in our country that there are not any consistent effort to identify, collect and evaluate native genotypes of them. This study was performed in order to identify, collect and evaluate native genotypes and important species in Isfahan province. In this project, early and late flowering genotypes of plums and prunes with superior qualitative and quantitative characteristics, type of intensive growth and dwarf trees, trees with different fruit traits in terms of size, color and shape of trees in the garden areas of Isfahan province were identified and collected. During study tree growing areas were visited and superior genotypes marked and their geographical location were recorded. At different growth stages, in 2013- 2014, marked trees were visited and their important traits were recorded based on the UPOV Descriptor. Results showed that frequency percentage of genotypes compared to other genotypes, Ghohrood was 70%, Dobahreh was 25%, Khansar was 100% and Mobarakeh was 20%. The largest fruit was observed in Ghohrood genotype and the smallest fruit was observed in Dobahreh genotype. The highest TSS belonged to Ghohrood and the least TSS was observed in Mobarakeh. In general, there were good diversity of tree and fruit characteristics among studied genotypes, and some of them could be used directly as commercial cultivars or at least as good parent materials for breeding programs.