iran, with a long history of apricot cultivation is one of the most important apricot producers in the world. centuries of sexual reproduction via seed, have developed many divergent variations of apricots in iran. however, unfortunately there is no comprehensive report available concerning its diversity and genetic make-up. in this study, 39 iranian apricot cultivars as well as accessions, nat...

Sequence variation was sampled in cultivated and related wild forms of tomato at fw2.2--a fruit weight QTL key to the evolution of domesticated tomatoes. Variation at fw2.2 was contrasted with variation at four other loci not involved in fruit weight determination. Several conclusions could be reached: (1) Fruit weight variation attributable to fw2.2 is not caused by variation in the FW2.2 prot...

The genetic diversity in yellow passion fruit genotypes from populations of different origins (Campos dos Goytacazes, Itaperuna and São Francisco de Itabapoana , Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil), was quantified. The following traits were evaluated in two environments (Macaé and Campos dos Goytacazes): fruit weight, mean number of fruits, fruit length, equatorial fruit diameter, rind thickness, bri...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pepper (Capsicum spp.) germplasm collection contains several thousand members or accessions. Many of these species and cultivars have not been analyzed for their concentrations of ascorbic acid, capsaicin, and total phenolic compounds, which are important antioxidants having a number of benefits for human health. The objective of this investigation was ...

Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca is known as a medicinal crop among other cucurbits and has been cultivated around many decades in some parts of Iran by local farmers. The present study was conducted on 8 accessions of C. pepo seed from various planting zones. All collected seeds were planted in Horticultural Science Research Field of University of Tehran in three replications with two observations...

Hedgerow fruits provide a food resource for several UK farmland bird species from late summer, through winter and into spring. This project aims to develop the understanding of the interactions between fruit-bearing hedgerow flowers, their pollinators, hedgerow fruits and frugivorous birds. Experiments revealed that flowers of blackthorn, hawthorn and ivy all benefited from insect visits in ord...

Rhagoletis pomonella is a model for incipient sympatric speciation (divergence without geographic isolation) by host-plant shifts. Here, we show that historically derived apple- and ancestral hawthorn-infesting host races of the fly use fruit odor as a key olfactory cue to help distinguish between their respective plants. In flight-tunnel assays and field tests, apple and hawthorn flies prefere...

Association mapping has been proposed as an efficient approach to assist plant breeding programs to investigate the genetic basis of agronomic traits. In this study, we evaluated 18 traits related to yield, (FWP, NF, FWI, and FWII), fruit size-shape (FP, FA, MW, WMH, MH, HMW, DI, FSI, FSII, OVO, OBO), and fruit quality (FIR, CF, and SST), in a diverse collection of 100 accessions of Physalis pe...