Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ACTA HORTICULTURAE, cilt.1282, sa.1, ss.123-132, 2020 (Scopus)
Eggplant is one of the important solanaceous crops used for human nutrition. Due to its highly adaptable capability it can be grown in different zones and altitudes in the world. Because of its ability to adapt to changing global environments, it will still keep signification in the future. Traditional heirlooms still cultivated in regions of crop domestication attract attention of the breeders. This paper presents origins, some morphological observations and breeding potentials of some heirlooms which are maintained by the farmers, who meet local market demands. In total, 40 eggplant genotypes collected from different regions and altitudes ranging from 40 to 1200 m in Turkey were morphologically characterized. The number of days from planting to flowering ranged between 27 and 41. The number of days from planting to 50% flowering ranged from 30 to 47 days; average fruit width (cm) from 2.4 to 7.0; average fruit length (cm) from 10.0 to 32.5; average fruit weight (g) from 108 to 221; brix from 4.3 to 5.4; and average total fruit yield per plot (g) from 1398 to 7025 g in the greenhouse conditions. There was a wide variation between the fruit color (L*, a* and b* values) and shape. The horizontal dendrogram was created by using UPGMA with morphological data. The genetic similarity rates ranged from 0.30 to 0.97. These results showed that there is a great genetic diversity among the heirlooms showing a potential for breeding which could be used as sources of variation for F1 eggplant breeding programmes. Furthermore, some genotypes from open field conditions could be used for commercial production under greenhouse conditions in different growing periods were identified in this study.