Morphological variation in fruit Diospyros lotus between and within some populations in northern Iran

To investigate the variation between and within same populations of Diospyros lotus based on fruit morphological characteristics, five populations (A, B, C, D, E) were selected along two altitude transects (populations A, B and C with a height of 300, 500 and 700 meters from the sea level, respectively in eastern Band‌‌pey forests of Babol and populations D and E with an elevation of 300 and 500 meters in Shastklateh, Gorgan). From each site 10 genotypes were randomly selected and some fruits of each genotype was collected in mid-October. After mixing the fruits, five fruits with three replicates were randomly separated and totally five traits measured. The results indicated that the difference between the populations for all traits was significant (p≤ 0.01). The mean comparison between populations also showed that in general, population A has the highest amount of trait mean. The analysis of variances within population also indicated that except population A, in other populations for all studied traits, there was significant difference between genotypes. Based on the results of this study, this species has high morphological diversity in fruit characteristics among and within studies populations and the best genotypes in order to gather fruit, were 5 and 6 from population A, 2 and 6 from population B, 3, 4 and 5 from population C, 4 and 5 from D and 5 and 4 from population E.