Halabja governorate in the Kurdistan region-Iraq is famous for having high-quality pomegranate accessions. The current study was conducted to evaluate the morpho-phytochemical amount of pomegranate functional food and the genetic diversity as an important tool for the characterization of the genetic resources for germplasm management and the identi cation of the best genotypes for genetic improvement. In this study, phenotypical parameter, highly signi cant morphometric differences (P ≤ 0.05) among 24 genotypes, with the mean values of fruit weight, peel thickness, and weight of 100 Arils, total avonoid content (TFC) and total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity, total soluble solid content (TSS) 299.21 g, 3.47 mm and 38.59 g, 54.50,47.97 µg/ml, 21.08 µg/ml and 14.59 Brix respectively. In addition, inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) was utilized to assess the genetic diversity of the collected pomegranate genotypes. Twelve random primers of produced products plus a number of the ampli ed primer bands ranging from 3 to 12 and total number of 83 ampli ed bands were produced, among which 78 bands were polymorphic and 5 bands were monomorphic. The highest, lowest, and mean values of polymorphic bands were (11, 3, and 6.5), respectively. The PIC values ranged from 0.58 to 0.90. The dendrogram clusters for all the selections showed dissimilarity coe cients ranging between 0.22 to 0.23 (G4 vs. G5) to 0.63 (G13 vs. G14), and ve groups (A, B, C, D, and F) with a mean dissimilarity (0.49). According to the results, morphometric and biochemical properties are signi cant aspects of development, discernment, and classi cation. Alongside with the ISSR marker, which is a useful technique for allowing the identi cation of different selections and assessing the genetic similarity among studied pomegranate accessions, this would facilitate their use as identi ed genetic stock in future breeding programs.

Halabja governorate in the Kurdistan region-Iraq is famous for having high-quality pomegranate accessions. The current study was conducted to evaluate the morpho-phytochemical amount of pomegranate functional food and the genetic diversity as an important tool for the characterization of the genetic resources for germplasm management and the identification of the best genotypes for genetic improvement. In this study, phenotypical parameter, highly significant morphometric differences (P ≤ 0.05) among 24 genotypes, with the mean values of fruit weight, peel thickness, and weight of 100 Arils, total flavonoid content (TFC) and total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity, total soluble solid content (TSS) 299.21 g, 3.47 mm and 38.59 g, 54.50,47.97 µg/ml, 21.08 µg/ml and 14.59 Brix respectively. In addition, inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) was utilized to assess the genetic diversity of the collected pomegranate genotypes. Twelve random primers of produced products plus a number of the amplified primer bands ranging from 3 to 12 and total number of 83 amplified bands were produced, among which 78 bands were polymorphic and 5 bands were monomorphic. The highest, lowest, and mean values of polymorphic bands were (11, 3, and 6.5), respectively. The PIC values ranged from 0.58 to 0.90. The dendrogram clusters for all the selections showed dissimilarity coefficients ranging between 0.22 to 0.23 (G4 vs. G5) to 0.63 (G13 vs. G14), and five groups (A, B, C, D, and F) with a mean dissimilarity (0.49). According to the results, morphometric and biochemical properties are significant aspects of development, discernment, and classification. Alongside with the ISSR marker, which is a useful technique for allowing the identification of different selections and assessing the genetic similarity among studied pomegranate accessions, this would facilitate their use as identified genetic stock in future breeding programs.

Almond is considered the most common and essential nut grown in the rainfed area. It has many species wildly distributed in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which are called Chaqala by local people. To understand and improve the characteristics of the cultivated almonds, a comprehensive study of wild almonds in terms of population structure and genetic diversity is needed to transfer new traits into the domesticated almonds. So, twelve different genotypes were collected and analyzed using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. The results revealed polymorphic bands for both markers, the mean value of 5.8 for the RAPD marker and 7.8 for the ISSR marker was also documented. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values were obtained for RAPD primes that range between (0.64-0.85) and ISSR primers were also verified between (0.53-0.91), which shows the discriminatory power of these markers. “Jaccard similarity coefficients” were obtained between 0.34 (G11 vs. G12) to 0.77 (G1 vs. G10), and clustered into four groups with a mean similarity (0.65) for ten RADP markers. For ten ISSR markers, 0.35 (G8, G10) to 0.79 (G6 vs. G11) were also observed, which is clustered into a mean similarity (0.65). Structure analysis of RAPD and ISSR showed two major groups. Overall, these outcomes showed the diversity between the studied genotypes and among groups which are highly important for future almond breeding and conservation programs.