IRANIAN JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Year:2011 | Volume:12 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

Sutiable size of transplant is one of the most important factors in selective transplant in onion production by transplanting method (TM). In order to evaluate the effects of different transplant size and age on total yield, yield components and some storage characteristics in onion, an experiment was couducted at the Agricultural Research Center of East Azarbaijan in 2008. A factorial arrangement based complete randomized block design (CRBD) with four replications was used. The experimental factors were four transplant sizes 9, 12, 15 and 20 cm and two cultivars of onion: ‘Azar-shahr’ (red hull and late mature) and ‘Gooli-Ghesseh Zanjan’ (bright-red skin, early mature). Following characteristics such as total yield (TY), bulb weight (BW), homogeneity (HOM) of bulb weight, bulb diameter (BD), HOM of bulb diameter, bulb length, HOM of bulb length, number of leaves, plant high (PH), number of bulb skin and edible layers, bulb diameter at the neck and base, number of centres and percentage of multiple center bulbs (PMCB) were studied. Analysis of variance of data indicated that except for the diameter base, other studied characters were significant in 1% level of probability.All evaluated characters increased with increasing of transplant size. Comparsions of the means of treatments showed that the transplant size of 20 cm had highest values of total yield and lowest was observed in seedling size of 9 cm (50.96 t ha-1 and 25.23 t ha-1 respectively). Also among of the cultivars except for the diameter base, other traits were significant. The Red ‘Azar-shahr’ was superior cultivar for all traits, to ‘Gooli-Ghesseh Zanjan’. The transplant size × cultivar was not significant. The results of simple correlation coefficient showed that the highest positive correlation was between TY and BD (r=0.962**) and the lowest was obtiainded between TY with PLH (r=0.576*). The data obtained in this experiment suggested that transplant size of 20 cm was superior to other transplant sizes. Therefore, transplant size of 20 cm is recommended of onion planting in TM for the places with the same environmental conditions of this experiment.

The effects of two kinds (urea and ammonium sulphate) and 5 levels (100, 150, 200, 250 and 300 kg N ha-1) of nitrogen fertilizers were evaluated on quantitative and qualitative characters, pungency and nitrate accumulation of garlic. The results showed that the kind of fertilizer had significant effects on bulb weight, number of cloves, length and diameter of bulb and weight of single clove. The highest amount of yield, length, diameter and weight of bulb and clove and number of cloves were obtained in 200 kg ha-1 nitrogen fertilizer. The highest amount of leaf length and number was observed in 300 kg ha-1 nitrogen. The highest amount of firmness, lowest weight loss and internal sprouting index was observed in lowest level of nitrogen application. Nitrogen fertilizer had significant effects on pungency, dry matter and accumulation of nitrate. The pungency increased by using 300 kg N ha-1 ammonium sulphate compared to urea. By increasing the fertilizer level pungency, nitrate accumulation and dry matter increased. The amount of pyruvate was highest in 300 kg N ha-1.Pungency was increased using ammonium sulphate and the highest amount of pyruvate was in 300 kg N ha-1. The highest amount of nitrate was in 300 kg N ha-1 urea and the lowest was in 100 kg N ha-1 while it had no significant difference with 100 kg N ha-1 ammonium sulphate. According to the results of this research under Hamedan conditions, using 200 kg ha-1 nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulphate could be recommended for having high yield and pungency and low nitrate accumulation in garlic.

The effects of plant growth regulators (GA3 100 ppm, IBA 200 ppm, BA 500 ppm, CCC 800 ppm) on essential oil chemical components of Jonquil (Narcissus tazetta L.) were investigated. The essential oil was extracted using solvent extraction method. In order to determine essential oil sample constituents, the oil was analyzed by capillary GC and GC/MS methods. Results of essential oil analysis related to different hormonal treatment showed that the amounts of main constituents of essential oil in jonquil were changed by hormonal treatments. Dodecane and Tetradecane were among the most components which increased with BA treatment up to 36.81% and 29.2%, respectively. As a result, compared with other applied regulators BA was the most effective for increasing main constituents. Moreover, the type and amount of other components showed some differences using different treatments.

Plum seedlings are among the most important rootstocks used for stone fruits in Iran. Due to high genetic diversity in seedling rootstocks, it makes possible differences in scion performances and finally non-uniformed orchards. In this study, RAPD markers were used for genetic diversity analysis of 72 plum genotypes. Twenty two primers were used that produced 224 bands among them 205 were polymorphic and 19 bands were monomorphic. The highest number of produced bands were 17 (TibMolBiol-BD04 primer) and the highest polymorphic band ratio were 100% (BB03, BB05, BB08, BD04, BD05, BD11, BD13, BD15, BD17 and BD18 primers). The average percentage of polymorphism among all of the primers used was 89.037 percent. Total resolving power was 92.16 with the mean of 4.19. The lowest similarity was (0.23) between Tanasgol (probable hybrid of plum and apricot) and S4-13, and the highest (0.87) was between S11-25 and S11-26. The mean similarity was 0.55 among pair-wise of genotypes. Cluster analysis based on Jaccard's similarity coefficients and UPGMA method and at similarity level of 0.58, were divided the genotypes into 13 sub-clusters which Tanasgol genotype was separated individually from others at distance of 0.29. The result showed a relatively high genetic diversity among plum genotypes.

Iran based on area and annual production of citrus is among 10 first citrus producing countries of the world. Alternate bearing is an important problem in some citrus cultivars including Satsuma mandarin. An alternate bearing tree doesn’t produce a regular crop in continuous years. To solve this problem, an experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with 7 treatments: 1.Control (nitrogen and phosphorus); 2. Macronutrient (nitrogen, potassium and magnesium); 3.Macronutrients+agricultural sulfur; 4. Optimum nutrition (macronutrients+agricultural sulfur+ micro nutrients "manganese, zinc, iron and boron"); 5. Optimum nutrition+winter spray of urea; 6.Optimum nutrition+winter spray of urea, zinc and boron and 7. Optimum nutrition+urea spray in pre- and post-harvest with 4 replications during 4 continues years on mature Satsuma mandarin trees.Applying fertilizer treatments adjusted alternate bearing cycle compared to control. Treatment 7 (optimum nutrition+urea spray in pre and post harvest) showed the lowest alternate bearing index during 4 years and treatments 4 (optimum nutrition) and 5 (optimum nutrition+winter spray of urea), placed after it. Treatment 1 (control) had the lowest yield in second and third years and the smallest fruits in first, second and forth years. Total yield of trees during 4 years was lowest in control and the highest in treatment 6 (optimum nutrition+winter spray of urea, zinc and boron).

Cold damage to flower bud is one of the limiting factors of almond growing in the world. This research was conducted as a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with three replications to evaluate selected almond cultivars ‘A93’, ‘Bome’, ‘Rabie’, ‘Shahrod21’, ‘144 Yazd’and ‘Marcona’ responses to freezing damage based on laboratory tests. In this investigation, flower buds of almond cultivars in three phenological stages bud swell, popcorn, blossoming were subjected to different cold temperature. During experiment period some of physiological characters of bud flower (ion leakage, proline and soluble carbohydrate) and percentage of frost damage (amount of tissue browning) were evaluated. Statistical analysis showed that percentage of frost damage in almond is strongly related to phenological stage and genotype, so that in bud swelling stage at -10oC, frost damage percentages in almond cultivars ‘A93’, ‘Bome’, ‘Rabie’, ‘Shahrod21’, ‘144 Yazd’ and‘Marcona’ were 5.5, 85.17, 62.85, 56.4, 61.3 and 56.51% respectively. And also in popcorn stage percentage of cold damage in almond cultivars ‘A93’, ‘Bome’, ‘Rabie’, ‘Shahrod21’, ‘144 Yazd’ and‘Marcona’ was 54.4, 69.4, 76.1, 68.8, 70 and 75.5% respectively. In the blossoming stage at -3°C frost damage in almond cultivars ‘A93’, ‘Bome’, ‘Rabie’, ‘Shahrod21’, ‘144 Yazd’ and ‘Marcona’ was evaluated 65, 60, 70, 100, 100 and 100% respectively. Results of physiological characters study showed that in bud swelling stage ion leakage amount in almond cultivars and frost damage were directly correlated, but between frost damage and proline content at popcorn stage there was no significant correlation. Among the almond cultivars in the blossoming stage, soluble carbohydrate content was different, so that cultivars with high level of carbohydrate content had higher resistance to frost damage. In ‘Marcona’ and ‘Rabie’ cultivars with 24.2 mg g-1 fw and 23.3 mg g-1 fw percentage of frost damage was 60 and 100, respectively.

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is a self pollinated crop of Solanaceae family. Iran is located in the diversity zone of this crop. In this study, 5 Iranian eggplant landraces (i.e. ‘Varamin’, ‘Neishabur’, ‘Mazandaran’, ‘Dezful’ and ‘Bandarabas’) were evaluated for 3 years using pure line selection method. In the first year, some single plants from each landrace on the basis of quantitative and qualitative traits were selected. In second year, the progenies of the selected plants (treatments) and their landraces (control) were planted in an augmented design. Progenies with higher yield were then selected on the basis of both yield and fruit quality. In third year, selected lines from second year along with two controls (i.e. ‘Varamin’ cultivar and ‘Long Purple’ hybrid) were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with 3 replications. Ten high yielding eggplant lines were selected witch had good uniformity and favorable quality traits and superior performance when compared to the parental landraces and the local control (‘Varamin’).

Irisis one of the most important cut flowers in Iran as well as in the world. Choromosome numbers of IranianIris are 2n=2x=18-48. Characterization and identification of genetic potentials of IranianIris germplasm is very important for the development of new cultivars and breeding purposes.Genetic diversity of 18Iris species collected from different parts of Iran was studied using 10 arbitrary primers of RAPD markers. Statistically, characteristics such as principal component analysis and cluster analysis by using UPGMA grouping, and determination of marker potentials, polymorphism information content (PIC), marker index (MI), effective multiplex ratio (EMR) and resolving power (RP) were estimated. A total of 255 RAPD polymorphic bands were detected. Polymorphic bands per primer combination ranged from 19 (RAPD3) to 31 (RAPD2). The highest and the lowest PIC detected for arbitrary primer combinations of OPC-9 and OPB-12 were 0.152 and 0.193, respectively. In general, a high degree of genetic diversity was revealed by RAPD markers. Maximum similarity coefficient (0.307) was estimated between I. meda and I. iberica and minimum similarity coefficient (0.025) was estimated between I. aucheri and I. pseudacaucasica. Cluster analysis of 18 species with 10 primers produced six groups, I. kopetdaghensis that is bulbous, crested, dwarf and dry land was segregate. Also I. spuria of tall Irises, rhizomatous type, grows naturally under humid conditions, perfume and beardedIris that had near genetic relationship and were segregated from other species.Principal component analysis (PCA) based on the first and second components indicated that I. spuria can be easily identified from the other species.