Comparative molecular analysis of old olive (Olea europaea L.) genotypes from Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey

Olive is an important Mediterranean tree species having many different ways of utilizations. The olive grove is an important farming sector in Turkey and dates back to thousands years, particularly in Anatolia. An historical culture of olive resulted in a broad genetic base for olive which is a long-lived tree. We compared the genetic profiles of six old olive cultivars from an Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey to 15 modern Turkish olive cultivars from different geographical origins. The RAPD profiles successfully clarified the molecular relationships among the genotypes tested. Seventeen RAPD primers generated 153 reproducible bands, 81% of which were polymorphic. The data were subjected tocluster and principle coordinates analyses. Cluster analysis supported three small groups based on geographical origins and these groups did not include any of the old cultivars. The old cultivars scattered around the ungrouped accessions and formed four subgroups. Principle coordinate resulted in similar overall patterns. Our results revealed that although sampled from a relatively narrow region, the old olive cultivars have broad genetic basis and are closely related to some of present-daycultivars/clones

Comparison of yield, quality and earliness of apricot varieties at Cukurova

In Turkey, apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is among the stone fruits whose production has markedly increased in recent years.The most important problem of culture is spring frosts. The Mediterranean coasts of Turkey from Samandag to Finike are safe from late spring frosts and have a suitable ecology for early apricot growing. Since the winters in this area are rather warm, the chilling requirements of apricot trees are assumed to be short. The objective of this work was to select the most suitable high yielding, early ripening and good quality apricot varieties adaptable ecological conditions of Adana. The phenological and pomological characteristics of the cultivars were determined. 01- K-15, Bebeco, Perfection, Rouge de Sernhac, Cafona and 07-K-09 were the highest yielding cultivars, Early Kishinewski, Bebeco, 01-K-15 and Rouge de Sernhac bore the largest fruits and Silistre Rona and Perfection were the most precocious cultivars among those studied ones

Development and characterization of SSR markers for pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) using an enriched library

In the present work, we report the development of 11 microstallite markers (SSR) for Punica granatum. Evaluated on a set of 27 pomegranate accessions sampled in Tunisia, they displayed 25 alleles, with number of alleles per locus ranging between 1 and 4, and an observed heterozygosity from 0.037 and 0.592. This set of SSR markers can be very useful for studies dealing with genetic diversity assessment of germplasm, with cultivars/varieties fingerprinting and pedigree analysis of this economically important fruit species