EVALUATION OF THREE WILD SPECIES OF ALMOND ON THE BASIS OF THEIR MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS

Due to the suitable climatic conditions, Iran is one of the most important growing centre for wild and domesticated species/varieties of almond. Because of the adaptability of wild almond species to severe environmental conditions and resistance to drought, salinity and some pest and diseases, these can be used as rootstock for almond cultivars and in breeding programs for rootstock improvement in Iran. In this study, seeds of Amygdalous scoparia, A.webbii and A. orientalis were planted. The analysis of variance showed a significant difference between species. However, A. scoparia had highest stem height and leaf length. At the end of the experiment, the thickest stems were developed by A. scoparia, whereas the thinnest stems by A. orientalis. A. webbii produced more number and longer roots per seedling than the other two species. The correlation between various morphological traits showed that a few shoot characters were significantly correlated with root traits. However, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, root number and root diameter for P. webbii, and leaf number, leaf length, leaf width, petiole length and root number characters for P.scoparia, and stem height, leaf number, leaf length, petiole length, internode length and root number for P. orientalis were found to be important morphological traits to evaluate seedling charactristics of wild almond genotypes before their nursery test