Abstract

Prunus genus is economically very important and many species are cultivatedworldwide for their fruits. There are about 75 native varieties of plum and prune in Iran. Guilan province is one of the important areas where fruits of some cultivars mature early in spring. The purpose of this study was to compare the morphological and pomological characteristics of eight plum and prune cultivars in Guilan, Northern Province of Iran. The cultivars were Baraghan, Red plum, Shablon, Ghatreh Tala (Golden drop), Peyvandi, Ghandi, Plastic, sour prune (Bur Alooche). Some traits such as fruit volume, weight, taste (including sour or sweet), diameter, shape and color, stone weight, flesh/stone ratio were determined as pomological characteristics at harvesting date of fruits. The data were analyzed by ANOVA procedure. The highest fruit diameter was related to Peyvandi cultivar (19.16) and the lowest belonged to Bur Alooche (5.54). The flesh/stone ratio, one of the most important characteristics of plum and prunes fresh fruits, was examined. The results revealed that there were significant differences among the cultivars. The Post-hoc Tukey test provided three groups in the evaluated cultivars for the flesh/stone ratio. The least ratio was observed in Bur Alooche (14.26), and the highest ratio belonged to Peyvandi (29.01) and Ghandi (29.32). The cultivars of Torsh (Bur Alooche) and Ghermez (Red plum) have little marketable values because of the small fruit size and sour taste of their fruits.

Key words: Plum and prune, cultivars, Iran, guilan.