Establishment of Collection Garden for Studying on Biodiversity in Indigenous Barberries

The Barberry (Berberis sp.) represents perennial spiny shrubs. Berberis genus is able to adapt to a broad range of stress conditions which made it as one of the hard medicinal plants in the world. It is also resistant to many pests and diseases. The barberry genetic resources are in endangered due to several natural threats such as floods, drought as well as human activities. The current research is an attempt to identify and conserve indigenous barberries by collecting suckers from five provinces and planting them in a national botanical garden in North-East of Iran, Khorasan Razavi, Mashhad, at Research Institute for Food Science and Technology (RIFST). During several years the natural habitats of collected barberries were morphologically studied and finally more than 30 species and hybrids selected for preservation and consequent studies. Based on our studies, it was found that B. integerrima is dominant species in the most of areas. All of collected barberries shrubs were growing on the height of 1600 m to 2800 m. In this study it is revealed the different species and hybrids of barberries are in association with other indigenous shrubs such as; Rosa canina, Paliurus Spina –Christi, Amygdalus scoparia, and Tamarix sp. The results of this study recommends that barberry not only as a medicinal plant with industrial application should be conserved, but also it can be used as green belt around the cities with arid and semi-arid climates as well as reclaimed mining environment. In addition to many benefits of this barberries collection garden, it is a gene pool for breeding of industrial barberry species, seedless barberry, and genetic improvement of ornamental barberries.