Diversity and Broad Sense Heritability of Phenotypic Characteristic in Almond Cultivars and Genotypes

Abstract

Phenotypic and genetic diversity are mandatory aspects to allow future breeding in fruit trees. This work was aimed to study the genetic diversity and heritability of important phenological traits in several almond genotypes. The seedlings were planted in randomized complete block design with 3 replications (two trees in each replication). Phenological traits including flower size, petal length, petal width, sepal length, sepal width, pistil length, pistil thickness were evaluated. Furthermore, number of stamens, first flowering, 10% flowering, 50% flowering, 90% flowering, date of flowering among 33 selected almond cultivars and genotypes were also evaluated using almond descriptors during 27 February to 29 March 2017. The results showed the existence of genetic variation among the studied cultivars and genotypes. A great phenotypic variation was observed for pistil length, petal width and flowering time. The exact and extended characterizations of all the new materials of almond could provide breeders new opportunities to develop future crosses and to obtain more resistant seedlings that can be better adapted to extreme and changing weather conditions in this area and in other regions of the world.