Agro-morphological diversity of traditional fig cultivars grown in central-western Spain

Abstract

There are not many exhaustive works addressing the agromorphological characterization of traditional fig (Ficus carica L.) cultivars in Spain. In order to analyze the diversity of these fig genetic resources, twelve traditional fig cultivars from the Central-Western Region of Spain were surveyed and characterized agromorphologically. A total of forty descriptors, mainly defined by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, were used to describe the fruits, leaves and the tree itself over two consecutive years (2013-2014). Some of the cultivars showed distinctive and interesting agronomical characters from a commercial point of view, such as two crops per year (breba and fig), high yields, and fruit quality. This was the case of the fig cultivar widely distributed through the Duero river valley called ?Cuarter?n?. Its fruits were quite heavy and sweet (breba: 93.75 g and 25.91? Brix; fig: 42.41 g and 31.50? Brix), easy to peel, and juicy. Principal component analysis revealed that more than 67% of the agromorphological variability observed was explained by the first three components, some of the breba size parameters (fruit and neck length and fruit width) being the most important factors in differentiating the genotypes. A dendrogram clustered the cultivars into two major groups (unifera and bifera type) and revealed existing synonymies and homonymies. ?Carballar Negra? and ?Moscatel? were the only fig cultivars which did not have breba crops. This work is an important step in the conservation of genetic fig resources in Spain.