CYTOGENETIC STUDY OF VARIOUS TYPES OF TEA (CAMELLIA SINENSIS) CULTIVARS IN IRAN

Abstract

Tea (Camellia sinensis) is one of the most economically important crops and is considered tobe the national drink of Iran. Although there has been an intensive cytogenetic study of tea in differentregions of the world, there has been no report from Iran. Therefore, the present investigation was carriedout in order to present the basic cytogenetical features of various tea cultivators grown in the country.The meiotic analysis of the tea cultivators studied showed variation in the prophase sub-stage of meiosis-I, due to the occurrence of a synezetic knot and post pachytene diffuse sub-stage. All tea cultivatorsstudied were diploid, with the chromosome number n=15. Although the major feature of chromosomeassociation was bivalent formation, quadrivalents were formed in the cultivator 3013, possibly due tostructural hybridity. The ANOVA test showed the presence of a significant difference among thecultivators for terminal, intercalary and total chiasmata, as well as ring bivalents indicating their genomicdifferences. Cluster analysis and PCA ordination of cultivators which are based on meioticcharacteristics, group those cultivators which show cytogenetic similarities.