Morpho-phytochemical Screening and Molecular Diversity of Pomegranate Accessions Grown in Halabja Governorate, Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Abstract

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.