FRUIT CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT LOQUAT GENOTYPES CULTIVATED IN PAKISTAN

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica Lindl.) is an important sub-tropical fruit. In Pakistan, northwestern frontier province (NWFP) and Northern Punjab are the loquat growing provinces and its fruit comes in the market when no other fresh fruit is available. Most of the loquat orchards have been established through the plants grown by seeds, hence having variation in various characters. So the loquat growers face difficulties during grading and marketing. There are no identified loquat cultivars available to the growers for uniform orchard plantation in the loquat growing belts of Pakistan. So there is a great need to characterize the available loquat genotypes of Pakistan. For this purpose, nine sites from the main loquat growing areas of Pakistan (Tret, Chhattar, Rawalpindi, Hasan Abdal, Wah, Hari Pur, Mardan, Kalar Kahar and Choa Saiden Shah) were selected and plants of different genotypes being grown over there were marked for the detailed study regarding different morpho-physical traits. Nineteen genotypes locally found in these areas were characterized on the basis of various characters. Average fruit weight of different genotypes ranged from 10.1 g to 39.7 g. Range of average fruit length was from 2.68 cm to 5.10 cm while that of width was from 2.60 cm to 3.87 cm. Fruit width/length idex ranged from 0.76 to 1.06. Average fruit density was between 1.014 g/cc and 1.097 g/cc. Percentage of edible portion ranged from 74.11 to 86.59. Number of seeds per fruit was found between 2.12 to 3.98 while average seed weight ranged from 0.82 g to 2.02 g. Fruit had different shapes from obovoid to oblong with a range of skin and pulp colours from light yellow to orange.