Online: ISSN 2784 – 0360 | ISSN – L 2784 – 0360 | Print: ISSN 2784 – 0379 ISSN-L 2784 – 0360

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Tama Mohamed

Morphological and Physicochemical Characterization of Date Palm Cultivars from Ghardaïa (Southeast Algeria)

Mar 31, 2021 |

Abdelkader Allam, Kaouthar Djafri, Meriem Bergouia, El-Haîfa Khemissat, Mohamed Tama, Brahim Taleb

ABSTRACT. The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is an economically important species vital for food security in Algeria, especially for the southern population. There are an estimated 18 million palm trees in Algeria with more than 1000 cultivars. This poorly known resource is unfortunately threatened with extinction. This work was carried out on 24 date palm cultivars, studying their morphological and physicochemical characteristics, such as the weight, length and diameter of the date and the seed, and the consistency, moisture, pH and sugar content of the dates. Ten homogeneous palm trees were selected for each cultivar. From each tree, we collected 40 fruits devoid of their calices (4-5 fruits per bunch), at different heights and orientations in each bunch. The results show that the morphological and physicochemical characteristics vary from one cultivar to another. The dates of most cultivars have a combination of good and bad characteristics. The cultivar Tmar-Bousbaa has very high values for the characteristics weight, length, and diameter of the date and seed (23.16 g, 4.90 cm, 2.85 cm, and 1.53 g, 2.74 cm, 0.94 cm, respectively). The cultivars Takarnait and Halwa have high acidity, varying between 1.08 and 1.92 g/kg of fresh material and a pH of less than 5.46. The cultivar Bouarous has a low sugar content: less than 63%. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the whole dataset, revealing high variability among the cultivars. Thus, out of 14 characteristics investigated, ten have been shown to be strong discriminating factors.

Keywords: characterization; cultivars; date palm; genetic diversity; oasis.

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Characterization of Pomegranate Cultivars in Palm Groves of the Oued Righ Valley (South-Eastern Algeria)

Jun 5, 2020 |

A. Allam, M. Tama

ABSTRACT. Varietal recognition is a key step for good management of genetic diversity. Indeed, the morphological description of certain organs, such as the leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, allow a more or less rapid and reliable identification of the varieties or cultivars. The culture of the pomegranate tree is very known in the valley of Oued Righ in the Algerian Southern, and it constitutes the main fruit species with a number of trees of 27.77 % of total number. The pomegranate tree is found in more than 84% of the farms of the region and its production is complementary of that of the dates. Unfortunately, no study has been realized on the characterization and the valorization of this species. To know and identify the varieties or the existing cultivars, we have undertaken a work of characterization of clones cultivated in the valley of Oued Righ. The plant material constituted by 13 clones of pomegranate tree stemming from various farms. The method of work consists in taking 20 fruits by tree for physico-chemical analyses in the laboratory. The results of analyses on sample of 13 clones described five cultivars, among which some present acceptable characters of fruit from a caliber point of view, contents in sugars and acidity. It shows that the naming of cultivars by the farmers based only on the acid taste of fruits “Hamad” or sweetened “Hlou” is not scientific and remain insufficient. Our results confirm the usefulness of morphological descriptors in the characterization of plant genetic resources. However, more clarification can be achieved by the undeniable contribution of molecular markers.

Keywords: Oued Righ; Sahara; oasis; palm grove, cultivar.

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© by the authors; licensee Journal of Applied Life Sciences and Environment, Iasi, Romania. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)