IRANIAN JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Year:2011 | Volume:12 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

A pot experiment in randomized complete block design was conducted to investigate the influence of zinc application methods (soil and foliar application) and concentrations (1 and 2 mg kg-1 in soil application and 1 and 3 g l-1 in foliar application methods) on the growth parameters, essential oil contents, yield and composition in costmary (Tanacetum balsamita L.). The aerial part of plants was harvested at flowering stage and air dried under shade condition. The essential oil of air dried organs was extracted by hydrodistillation method using a Clevenger type apparatus and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The results showed that the effect of zinc application on growth parameters was significant. Zinc application caused an increase in fresh and dry weight of aerial parts and leaf area and the highest increase was observed with soil application of 2 mg kg-1. The effect of zinc application on essential oil content was not significant but increased essential oil yield significantly. The highest increase in essential oil content and yield was belonged to 2 mg kg-1 of soil application. The results of essential oil analysis showed that 20 components were identified in the costmary essential oil. Carvone and a-thujone were main components of essential oil and they showed little variation under zinc application.

Pear psylla is one of the most important pests of pome and stone fruit trees. Pear trees were damaged more than any other hosts of this insect. Several researches in the biology field of this insect have been conducted during the past two decades. Therefore, assessment of Asian pear trees resistance, considering the value of this new product in the country, is required. For this purpose, this project was conducted in 2008 growing season in order to explore and monitor the resistance of some Asian pear (Pyrus serotina Rehd.) cultivars including ‘KS6’, ‘KS7’, ‘KS’8, ‘KS9’, ‘KS10’, ‘KS11’, ‘KS12’, ‘KS13’ and ‘KS14’ to pear psylla (Cacopsylla pyricola L.). Evaluation of insect resistance were determined based on the number of insects on leaves, the final product, the amount of fruit loss, leaf area, sugar content and leaf chlorophyll content. Among tested plant materials, ‘KS13’ with a few number of the pear psylla, ‘KS8’ and ‘KS14’ with lower fruit drop, were found to be moderately resistant to this pest of the antixenosis and tolerance types, respectively. Assessed correlation of sugar content and resistance, indicated that the cultivars with lower sugar content were resistant to the pear psylla. Leaf area did not show any significant correlation in respect to resistant to pear psylla.

Self-incompatibility is one of the most important constrains in almond production which reduce fruit set dramatically and makes orchard management difficult. Therefore, almond breeding to produce self-compatible genotypes is very important. In this research, pollen tube growth was studied in 38 genotypes obtained from crossing between ‘Touno’ (male parent) and ‘Shahrood 12’ (female parent) by fluorescent microscopy and PCR. To study pollen tube growth after self pollination, flower samples were harvested at 120 h after hand pollination and pollen tube growth was studied by fluorescent microscopy. Results showed that at 120 h after hand pollination, 39.47% of genotypes were self-incompatible, 23.68% of genotypes were doubtful, 26.32% of genotypes were self-compatible and 10.53% of genotypes were recognized as highly self-compatible. To double check the status of selfcompatible genotype and to determinate the situation of doubtful genotypes recognized by fluorescent microscopy, PCR reaction was carried out by specific primers of SfF and SfR.Results showed that five genotype were self-compatible. However, four another genotype were recognized as self-incompatible. In general, 50% of genotypes were realized as selfcompatible and another 50% were self-incompatible.

Evaluation of growth and development pattern of fruits is a subject of interest to plant physiologists and horticultural researchers and may also be of economic importance for understanding the associated problems. This study was undertaken to ascertain the nature of fruit development in the date cv. ‘Barhee’, with particular reference to the comparison of parthenocarp and normal fruits from pollination to harvest time. Fruits were harvested at 20 days intervals during a 160 days growth cycle and evaluated for fresh weight, diameter and length, volume, water content, total soluble solids (TSS), acidity, pH, firmness, surface color change, total chlorophyll and cartenoids, water activity and major mineral contents. Normal fruits exhibited a sigmoid growth pattern. Lightness decreased with fruit maturity as did estimated pigments. Color change and TSS were responsible indicators of ripening of‘Barhee’ date fruit at different stages including Khalal, Rutab and Tamar. Inversely, parthenocarp fruits showed considerably different growth pattern and they almost didn’t reach maturity stage and strong significant variation was also found at harvest time between normal and parthenocarp fruit attributes. Mineral element analysis showed that date fruit cv. ‘Barhee’is a rich source of potassium and the concentrations of K, Ca and Mg had an increase till the mid of growth cycle and then decreased gradually.

In order to analysis the parentage of offsprings from a controlled crosses, recognizing seedlings from unwanted pollination and evaluation of homogeneity of the analyzed trees, 30 seedlings of the cross (‘Red Spur’ × ‘Golab-e- Kohanz’) and the cultivars ‘Red Spur’, ‘Golden Smoothee’, ‘Gerany smith’, ‘Golab-e-Kohanz’ and ‘Shafi Abadi’ as probable parents were evaluated with microsatellite markers. From 13 pair of microsatellite primers, CH01d018, CH03d07, CH02g01 and Col pair primers could separate actual parents of these offsprings from the other cultivars using exclusion method and likelihood based assignment method. Allele distribution among the offsprings determined their codominant mode of inhertance and no significant differences with Mendelian codominant ratio were observed using chi-square test. The results of this experiment could recognize a progeny from an unwanted cross. In each parent cultivar, between several trees used as plant materials no difference was observed using microsatellite analysis.

Occurrence of abnormalities in vegetative growth and fruit set are the most serious problems associated with tissue culture-derived date palm trees. In order to evaluate the pollen source and mixing ratio on fruit characteristics of cv ‘Barhee’, an experiment was carried out in a commercial orchard in ‘Minab’ (‘Homozgan’ province, Iran), during 2008. The treatments were three pollen sources (genotypes 1002, 1003 and 1006) and four pollen mixing ratios (100%, 75%+25%, 50%+50% and 25%+25%+50%). A factorial experiment was arranged as a completely randomized design with four replications (one tree in each replication). Results showed that significant variations were in fruit characteristics among the various treatments. The effects of mixing of pollens were significant on pH, titratable acidity, reducing sugars, weight and length of fruit and pit diameter. Also, the effect of pollen source was significant on pulp weight, total soluble solid and total reducing sugars. Pollen sources and/or mixing of pollens had no a significant effects on moisture, dry matter, fruit diameter, pit length and pulp/pit weight ratio. Results showed that mixing of pollens affected some fruit and pit characteristics of tissue culture-derived date palm and mixing of different pollens could be considered as a new method of pollination for date palm tress.

In this research, cut flowers of Gladiolus ‘Wing Sensation’ were treated continuously with different concentrations of salicylic acid (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mg l-1) in order to study and increase vase life of flowers. With increasing salicylic acid concentration, the vase life also increased and the greatest delay of flower senescence was obtained with 150 mg l-1 salicylic acid. Although at first, fresh weight and water uptake in treated flowers increased but later gradually decreased. When flowers were reaching to senescence stage, membrane stability index (MSI) decreased and lipid peroxidation increased. The higher activities of Peroxidase occurred in this stage but it was more in control cut flowers than treated flowers. The most MSI with lower lipid peroxidation rate was obtained in 150 mg l-1 salicylic acid treatment. In addition, salicylic acid as an antioxidant, with keeping membrane stability, delayed senescence process of cut gladiolus flowers.

Phenolic compounds of fruits and vegetables have an important role in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and different types of cancers. This property is due to their antioxidant activity.Apple fruit is known as a rich source of phenolic compounds. In this study, total phenolics, some classes of flavonoids, chlorogenic acid and antioxidant activity of the peel of two Iranian apple cultivars including ‘Mashhad’, ‘Mashhad-e noori’, and two imported cultivars namely ‘Starking’ and‘Jonathan’ were investigated. Results showed a significant variation among the studied cultivars regarding the amount of all studied cases except for cyanidin 3-galactoside. The peel of ‘Mashhad’cultivar had the highest chlorogenic acid and phloridzin and that of ‘Jonathan’ had the highest catechin, quercetin 3-galactoside and cyanidin 3-galactoside. Analysis of regression of total phenolics and antioxidant activity data showed that there was a positive relation between total phenol and antioxidant activity of peel. The highest total phenolics and antioxidant activity were found in‘Jonathan’ followed by ‘Starking’, ‘Mashhad-e noori’ and ‘Mashhad’.