MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR EVALUATION OF SOME MANDARIN CULTIVARS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Hort. Dept., Fac. Agric., Mansoura Univ.

2 Citrus Res. Dept., Hort. Res. Institute, ARC, Egypt

Abstract

This  work  was  carried  out  to  evaluate  ten new mandarin cultivars (Citrus reticulata Blanco) with respect to the local  cultivar  (Baladi mandarin). The  investigation was  executed  during  the  two successive  seasons  of  2011  to  2013 at the Horticultural Research Station South El Tahrier, Beheira Governorate. The evaluation involved both the growth and productivity which included yield traits and fruit physical and chemical characteristics. The ten cultivars showed significant variations when compared with the local mandarin cultivar for leaf characteristics, tree canopy volume, and fruit weight and fruit chemical properties. DNA fingerprint was performed using RAPD technique for characterization the studied cultivars. RAPD  analyses  exhibited  a total  of  14  bands  among  them,  13  bands were  polymorphic of about  92.85%. Those bands were used to distinguish among cultivars. Both morphological and molecular analyses showed a high degree of variation among the new cultivars, indicating that they have an important source of genetic diversity which would be used in future citrus in breeding programs.

Keywords