Variations of Growth Characteristics and Fruit Attributes in Some Iranian Blackberry Genotypes

Iran is a one of important areas for plant genetic resources diversity. Its rich biological diversity, in particular for wild edible fruits including wild blackberries, is a result of the extreme variations in climate. This study aims to evaluate and compare 16 genotypes of blackberry from 4 different species in order to introduce Iranian superior genotypes. Characteristics such as length, types of thistle, thistle thickness, the density of thistle, length and diameter of leaf, flowering date, and color of flowers, fruiting date, length and diameter of fruit, fruit weight and the number of drupelets per fruit were measured. The obtained results indicated a high variation in almost all of measured characteristics. The biggest fruit was observed in genotypes of Rubus sanctus and the smallest fruit was seen in genotypes of R. hirtus. Thistle traits including thickness and density have a significant correlation with some fruit characteristics such as the number of drupelets. Factor analysis showed that five main factors account for nearly 78/51% of the total variance. In cluster s analysis based on Ward s method, the blackberry s genotypes were divided in to three main groups. The genotypes of R. sanctus which had the largest fruits and highest number of drupelets per fruit and fruit weight were placed on the first group. Genotypes that had the earliest flowering time (R. hirtus) are positioned in the second group, and those genotypes for which the leaf length and growth characteristics played an important role in their differentiation (R. persicus) were placed on the third group. High variation of bush and fruit characteristics as well as results obtained from cluster analysis could be very useful for further breeding programs of blackberry in Iran.