Morphological Diversity in Native Apricot Germplasm Resources of China and Grading Standards for the Foliar and Fruit Traits

摘要

Foliar and fruit traits have been studied extensively to understand the diversity of native apricot in China. Ten traits including leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, fruit height, and so on, are analyzed. The variation and distribution types of these traits were studied with an objective to understand the level of diversity for these traits in more than 590 germplasm accessions from China. Six traits including leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, fruit height, fruit lateral width, and fruit ventral width show high diversity with the variation coefficient of 16.1%, 20.6%, 17.7%, 16.3%, 16.6% and 18.0% respectively and normal distribution style. It shows that there is broad variation in leaf and fruit quantitative traits in native apricot resources. This evaluation may help for identifying valuable selections that can serve as sources for germplasm collections. Critical points for apricot quantitative traits grading were recommended based on the results which provide the valuable basis for compiling apricot DUS test guidelines in China.