Evaluation of phenotypic variation of Iranian watermelon (Citrullus sp.) accessions by morphological markers

This experiment was performed to study the genetic diversity among accessions of different types of watermelon accessions including: open pollinated, hybrid and wild types (Citrulus clocynthis) by using morphological traits. Seeds were planted in three replications in randomized completely block design in fields in 2011 and fruit, seed, bush and leaf phenotypic traits were evaluated. Simple correlation among measured traits showed significant correlations between some important traits. Factor analysis for all genotypes divided traits to six main factors that included 79.53% of total variance and fruit and leaf traits portion was higher. Cluster analysis by using these main factors divided genotypes to five main clusters at distance of 15 on dendrogram. In the first group most of the open pollinated accessions placed and mostly separated of each other based on fruit and shoot characters. Citrulus colocynthis accessions with distinct traits revealed more distance of other accessions. According to the present results high diversity were observed among accessions and fruit and seed traits were more important to segregate different watermelon accessions from different parts of Iran.