Hussam Baroudi *(1) Georgous Makhoul (1) Wafaa Choumane (2) Khaldoun Tiba (3)
(1). Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria
(2). Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria. Biotechnology Center, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria.
(3). General Commission for Scientific Agriculture Research, Damascus, Syria.
(*Corresponding author: Eng. Hussam Baroudi. Email: hussambaroudi@gmail.com).
Received: 2/10/2022 Accepted: 15/11/2022
Abstract:
This research was conducted in 2019 and 2020, on 49 cultivated types of al-shami mulberry from Al-Qunitera, Hadar (37 types), Tartous (9), and Lattakia (3). Twenty-five morphological characters based on leaves, catkins and fruits were used to study the morphological characterization, genetic diversity between the different types, and set essential taxonomic keys for them. Based on the interest of General Commission for Scientific Agriculture Research in alshami mulberry tree, which spread widely in Al-Qunitera, in addition to the absence of morphological studies for it. Morphological taxonomic keys for Alshami mulberry were established. Data had been organized into tables to calculate the degree of dissimilarity and to establish a dendrogram representing the genetic distance between Alshami genotypes. A High level of dissimilarity was revealed between all studied types within and between the different geographic sites. The morphological cluster tree for all types showed two main groups with a genetic contrast ratio of 52%. These results showed that the polymorphism detected between the different types revealed a difference at the genetic level, in addition to the effect of environmental factors on the most studied characters, which makes these characters suitable for the detection of genetic diversity between Al-shami mulberry types and for the establishment of a mulberry database to use it later in the genetic improvement of mulberry trees.
Keywords: Shami mulberry, Morus nigra L., Genetic diversity, Morphological characterization.
Full paper in Arabic: pdf