Najwa Motaeb Alhajjar
Swaida Research Center , General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research (GCSAR)
Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University
Abstract:
This investigation was conducted at the General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research- Scientific Agricultural Center in Sweida and in pistachio fields in addition to the distribution area of P.atlantica Desf. during 2012- 2014 in the aim to assess a genetic base for wide spread P.vera female genotypes in the South of Syria- Sweida province, and to evaluate their behaviour through determining the most important criteria used for the evolution the adaption and the success of P.vera cultivation in expanding areas, and to asses genetic similarity using Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) technique. Many of P.vera which local named genotypes showed important commercial characters, especially Ash.2 (Ashouri Mawardi Mokhmali) and Bat.1 (Batouri Grahi) genotypes, which indicated to a large genetic variation among genotypes that directly affected the behavior and the productivity of this crop. Total fat percentage and fatty acid compounds particularly mono unsaturated fatty acid (Oliec acid) values indicated to rich ammounts of pistachio fruit fatty acids. Results revealed the absence of aflatoxin from studied genotypes, while the others were low contaminated except the genotype Ash.5 (Ashouri Lsan Altair) which was contaminated with AFB1, AFB2 types, moreover, the commercial sample was contaminated with three Aflatoxin types (AFB1, AFB2, and AFG1). Winter chilling requirements were studied under feild and laboratory conditions, the best chilling hours ranged between 900-1200 H for female P.vera cultivars and 1000-1200H for the male cultivar (Adam). The chilling requirement index (CRI) indicated to the best coincidence between male and female cultivars at1200 chilling hours. PA35 and PA37 bisexual P.atlantica genotypes showedhigh efficiency as pollinators for female P.vera cultivars, especially Ashouri cultivar, and also recognized by the high percentage of pollen grains viability and fertility, whereas the bisexual genotype PA12 was covered bysticky substances that restricted the germination ability. On the othar hand, our results proved the efficiency of SSR markers for distinguishing the genetic variation of individuals. Some primer pairs as (EPVM021, EPVF019, EPVM016, Ptms-7) gave high efficiency of revealing genetic variation and multiple loci in addition to the co-dominant loci in the studied genotypes and cultivars beside the F1 hybrids (P.atlantica × P.vera). The genetic similarity between F1 hybrids were closer to their female parents (FA and FB) than to their male parent (PA12, PA37 and PA35), which may indicated to the role of cytoplasmic inheritance except for the HB3 (FB×PA35) which revealed genetic distances 0.37 with FB and 0.43 with PA35.
Key Words: P.vera, P.atlantica, fatty acids, Aflatoxin, CRI, pollinizers efficiency, crossing programs, SSR markers.