Diversity investigation and identification of morphological and molucular traits of Iranian Citrus natural biotypes.

In Citrus, the long history of cultivation, wide dispersion, widely sexual compatibility between Citrus and related genera and the high frequency of bud mutations have resulted in high genetic variability in the world. Their exact and assured identification is a noticeable problem in the citriculture industry. On one hand, it is required to have the high selection capability among the available plants in order to correct and produce the appropriate cultivars and this issue, by itself, requires identifying the plants and the available diversity among them. On one hand, it is required to have the high selection capability among the available plants in order to correct and produce the appropriate cultivars and this issue, by itself, requires identifying the plants and the available diversity among them. Therefore, the determination of the genetical diversity and identification of the cultivars are regarded as the basic and initial basis for the genetical researches and the plans of the correction of the plants. In this study, 90 genotypes including 73 unknown accessions and 17 known (control) cultivars of citrus trees in the Kotra Citrus Research Station (Tonekabon) collection were selected and morphological , ISSR and PCR-RFLP markers were used for determining polymorphism. With use of mentioned markers, characterization of unknown genotypes and phylogenetic relationships between them and known cultivars were done. Morphological markers were able to distinguish between oranges and mandarins but molecular markers were unable. By dendrograms analyses, it is confirmed that mandarin (Citrus reticulata), pummelo (C. grandis) and citron (C. medica) were clustered into three particular groups as major species of Citrus. Key words: Vegetative tarits, Reproductive traits, Phylogenetic relationship, Citrus, ISSR, PCR-RFLP.