Investigation of cytogenetic in some of almond species and peach in Iran

The genus of almond is Prunus and from the family of Rosaceae. It has more than 30 species in the form of the tree, the spinous and non-spinous shrub. The sweet almond is one of them and it is economically important. To study the relationship between three wild and domestic species of almond and peach, the kariosystematic studies on the Amygdalus communis, Prunus persica L., A. trichamygdalus woronow, A. lycioides Spach were done using karyological methods. The meristem cells of the root were used for these studies. In each specimen, ten suitable metaphase plates were chosen and photographed so that the morphology of the chromosomes was completely clear. The standard karyotype was prepared for the species and the population separately and the parameters of the chromosomes including the complete length of the chromosomes, the length of the long arm, the length of the short arm, the relative length of the arms (AR), TF % and the relative length of the chromosomes etc were calculated. There was significant difference between all of the species that can be employed to recognize the species. All of the studied species were diploid with the numbers of the chromosomes 2n=16 and the base number of the chromosomes was X=8. Average size of chromosomes in species of this genus was 2.43±0.03 micron in Iran. Also there is significant difference between all of the homologous chromosomes according to the measured cytological characters. The similarity and the differences between the species were evaluated on the basis of the cytological specificities including the length of the chromosomes, the long arm, the short arm, the relative length of the arms and the index of the chromosomes that on this basis and using the method of Duncan and the variance analysis, species of A. communis had the most similarity with the species of A. lycioides and the species of A. trichamygdalus, and P. persica had the most similarity with each other. Finally, the studied species were classified into two groups cytologically.