Genetic and morphological diversity of native populations of parsley (Petroselinum crispum Mil.)

Extended Abstract
Introduction: Parsley is a plant from the parsley family (Apiaceae), which is in the vegetable group, and its origin is considered to be the eastern part of the Mediterranean or West Asia. Despite the significant production and consumption of this plant in the country, there are few data about the native populations of this plant. Several studies have also been conducted with the aim of cultivating parsley (Danaiee, 2015; Saadati et al., 2019) and increasing the seed germination percentage of indigenous populations (Mirjalili and Poorazizi, 2024). This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the genetic diversity between parsley populations using morphological characteristics.
Materials and Methods: 24 seeds of native parsley plants from different parts of the country including plants from Jiroft, Garmsar, Minab, Arak, Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Yazd, Dezful, Hamadan and Tehran were collected by the authors and two imported plants were purchased and cultivated. The plan was implemented as an augmentation. 21 vegetative and reproductive traits were selected and measured according to UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) guidelines. Isfahan population (Rehnan) was considered as control.
Results and discussion: Analysis of variance of the data showed that the stands had a significant difference at the level of 1% in terms of the investigated traits. Traits related to plant height, plant spread, petiole length, leaflet length, leaflet width, leaf to petiole length ratio, number of side branches, number of umbels per plant, number of umbelets per umbel and number of days to germination have significant difference at level 1% and the number of leaves and length of the leaf were significant at the level of 5% and the rest of the traits were not significant. The highest plants (27 cm) observed in Bahar Hamadan population. Native population of Jiroft-Dehghan 3 had the widest plants (38.4 cm) and Isfahan Jarqouye population showed the highest number of leaf (11.2 leaves per plant) and the longest petiole (19.76 cm) among other populations. Examining the degree of correlation of traits among the studied parsley populations showed that the traits have little correlation with each other. Drawing the dendrogram of the morphological similarities of the masses based on quantitative traits indicated that these similarities or distances are not related to the geographical location of the seed collection place of the populations. In general, it was concluded that the populations of Jarqouye of Isfahan and Bahar Hamedan are promising native populations and can be used for breeding purposes.
Conclusion: The native populations of Jafari have considerable genetic diversity in terms of quantitative traits. Evaluation of morphological traits in plant taxa is a preliminary step in character recognition. The present study showed that there is a diversity of morphological traits in these populations and this diversity is of particular importance in breeding programs, but the confirmation of this diversity requires more detailed studies including molecular and cytological studies.