Characterization of morphological traits of local and global persimmon varieties and genotypes collected from Turkey

Abstract

Genetic variations are highly important in terms of plant breeding. These variations occur either spontaneously or artificiallyby mutations and sexual hybridizations in order to achieve specific breeding objectives. In this study, persimmon genetic resourcescollected from Turkey and preserved ex situ with commercial cultivars in a germplasm orchard located at Çukurova University, Turkey,were characterized based on their morphological traits. The collection was composed of traditional genotypes and local accessionstogether with global varieties. For the morphological characterization, 59 morphological and agronomic traits were investigated: 9related to plant growth, 5 to leaf characteristics, 7 to flower traits, 32 to fruit traits, and 6 to seed traits. Moreover, the data obtained inthis process were subjected to similarity coefficient, principal component, and cluster analyses to demonstrate the overall phenotypicrelationships among these genotypes. The cumulative proportion of variation reached 39.04% with the first three PCA axes. The firstcomponent was based on shoot length, trunk surface structure, flowering time of female flowers, fruit length, and diameter. The twelvefactor scores represented 74.75% of the total multivariate variation, and cluster analysis indicated that the similarity index of thepopulation consisting of the investigated genotypes ranged between 81.09% and 17.32%.