ABSTRACT. Ten SSR loci, previously developed for Prunus, were analyzed to examine genetic relationships among 23 rootstock candidates for sweet and sour cherries, of the species P. avium, P. cerasus, P. mahaleb, and P. angustifolia. Five genotypes of P. laurocerasus, not used as rootstock, were included in the molecular analysis. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 8 to 12, with a mean of 9, while the number of microsatellite genotypes varied from 8 to 17, indicating that the SSRs were highly informative. The degree of heterozygosity (0.61) was high. Clustering analysis resulted in two main clusters. The first cluster was divided into two subclusters; the first subcluster consisted of P. avium and P. cerasus, and the second subcluster consisted of P. laurocerasus. The second cluster was divided into two subclusters. The first subcluster consisted of P. mahaleb genotypes and the second consisted of P. angustifolia genotypes. The reference rootstocks also clustered with their associated botanical species. Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean analysis demonstrated that P. laurocerasus 2157 ©FUNPEC-RP www.funpecrp.com.br Genetics and Molecular Research 9 (4): 2156-2165 (2010) SSR analysis in Prunus rootstocks genotypes had less genetic variation and that P. avium genotypes were more closely related to P. cerasus. The SSR-based phylogeny was generally consistent with Prunus taxonomy information, suggesting the applicability of SSR analysis for genotyping and phylogenetic studies in the genus Prunus.

Introduction Quince (Cydonia oblonga Mill.) is a pome fruit, like apple and pear, that belongs to the family Rosaceae. It originated in northern Iran, the Hazar Sea, South Caucasus, Khurasan, and Anatolia. Its fruit is mainly used by the food industry to produce jam, jelly, and marmalade. Quince is a good source of minerals, vitamins (especially vitamin C), and sugars (Bucsek et al., 1996) as well as flavonoid compounds, such as quercetin, rutin, and kaempferol (Silva et al., 2002, 2005). The total global production of quince has reached about 677,949 metric tons, and Turkey is one of the main producer countries, along with Uzbekistan and China, and is responsible for about 19% of the total global production (Faostat, 2016). In Turkey, most of the quince cultivars originated from seedlings accidentally grown in backyards or at the borders of orchards (Özbek, 1978). There are still many natural quince accessions in different regions of Turkey that are valuable genetic resources for quince breeding. All quince cultivars and accessions belong to one species in the genus Cydonia. Identification and characterization of quince accessions morphologically are considerably difficult due to high similarities in the tree structure and fruit traits of quince plants (Yamamoto et al., 2004). Identification of relationships based on morphological characteristics has been widely used in many species including walnut (Keles et al., 2014), cherry (Rakonjac et al., 2010), and olive (Cantini et al., 1999). However, morphological characterization does not perfectly reveal the relationship due to the influence of environmental factors and low heritability (Cadee, 2000; Bucheyeki et al., 2009). DNA-based molecular markers have been effective tools to characterize plant materials for the last several decades (Lacis et al., 2009). Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are a marker of choice due to their codominant nature, abundance in the genome, suitability for automation, high polymorphism, and repeatability (Kacem et al., 2017). One of the main advantages of SSR markers is their transferability between closely related species (Schlotterer and Tautz, 1992). The use of SSR markers for molecular characterization is well proven in different species, such as apple (Gasi et al., 2016), apricot (Hormaza, 2002), peach (Bouhadida et al., 2007), pear (Fan et al., 2013), pistachio (Zaloglu et al., 2015), and walnut (Topcu et al., 2015). Therefore, the use of SSR markers to determine the relationships among quince accessions can be highly reliable.

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Abstracts. The focus of this review is to present the results of studies and articles about ways to prune fruit trees. Pruning should be done in late winter or early spring so that the infection risk can be significantly decreased. This review will also offer an overview of methods to prevent infections and speed up recovery on the trees. The following is an interpretation of why high-power ultrasonic assisted pruning in the fruits trees is needed and will elaborate on the efficiency, labor costs, and safety, as well as space, location, and some environmental issues.

ABSTRACT. Two local (Vezir-1 and Vezir-2) and two standard (M9 and MM106) clonal apple rootstocks were compared using both morphological and molecular markers. International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants criteria were used for morphological evaluation, which did not clearly separate these rootstocks. We tested 47 random decamer primers for random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis; 15 of them gave reproducible polymorphic patterns, yielding 109 bands, which showed 78% polymorphism. Based on a dendrogram obtained by unweighted pair group method using arithmetic average analysis, three clusters were obtained. The highest genetic similarities were found between M9 and Vezir-2 (0.670). The random amplified polymorphic DNA markers proved to be more efficient than the standard morphological markers for the identification of rootstocks.

Yozgat province is located on the Bozok Plateau in the middle Kızılırmak section of Turkey’s Central Anatolian region. In a research carried out in 2015–2016, a total of 142 genotypes of fruit samples having superior characteristics in rosehips grown naturally were taken from Yozgat province and districts. As a result of the modified weighed results, 49 types were found in the first year as promising. In the second year of selection, the morphological and pomological characteristics of selected genotypes of the first year were examined. In this study, phenolic compounds and organic acids, macro and microelement, and fatty acid analysis were carried out in 5 genotypes which are prominent among these genotypes. When phenolic compounds of rosehip genotypes were investigated, gallic acid varied from 3.52–22.35 mg·kg–1. Citric acid was observed to be the main organic acid in rosehips and it was found to be the highest (6.21 mg·g–1) in the 66 SRK 12, while it was detected lowest in the 66 BGZ 11 (2.05 mg·g–1). Mineral compositions of rosehip genotypes, e.g. P, K, Ca and Mg, were: 182.56–1768.97 mg·kg–1, 1.06–10 450.16 mg·kg–1, 27.40–17 616.59 mg·kg–1, 8.55–3134.67 mg·kg–1, respectively. Seven major fatty acids were determined in rosehip genotypes and palmitic acid, linoleic acid, stearic acid, and oleic acid were 3.42–5.28%, 30.32–50.22%, 3.07–6.60%, 21.58–48.31%, respectively.

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Sweet cherries can be grafted on a wide range of rootstocks belonging to Prunus avium, Prunus cerasus, Prunus mahaleb, Prunus angustifolia or hybrids of different Prunus species. Identification of Prunus rootstocks using morphological traits is almost impossible particularly during the dormant season. However, molecular analysis carried out on actively growing shoot tips, leaves or dormant buds provides good opportunity to reliably distinguish rootstocks. In this study, DNA was extracted from the leaves of a total of 184 sweet cherry rootstock candidates belonging to P. avium L., P. cerasus L., P. mahaleb L. and P. angustifolia L. previously selected from the north-western part of Turkey. The rootstock candidates were tested with ten simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers, developed for the Prunus genus. The primers successfully identified all rootstock candidates. The results showed that the number of alleles per locus ranged from 10 (UDAp-401, UCD-CH21 and CPSCT010) to 20 (UCD-CH31) with an average of 13.3 alleles per locus, indicating that the SSRs were highly informative. Unweighted Pair-Group Method with Arithmetic mean analysis demonstrated that P. avium accessions are closely related to P. cerasus. The reference rootstocks were clustered with their associated botanical species.