Selection of promising chestnuts(Castanea sativa) among wild growing trees from southern Mediterranean region forests of Turkey

Turkey ranked third place in the world for chestnut production after China and South Korea and the country has unique chestnut forests including valuable and diverse chestnut genotypes. This study was conducted to select superior chestnut genotypes within seedling popu- lations found in natural wild grown chestnut forest located in Isparta province in Turkey during 2010-2011 years. A total of 2500 wild grown chestnut trees were examined on the field first year and among them the most promising 22 genotypes were chosen according to relatively high yield capacity, earliness, tolerance to chestnut blight （Cryphonectria parasitica）, ink disease （Phytopthora cambivora）, and fruit quality characteristics. The selected 22 genotypes were evaluated for their detailed morpho- logical, phenological and pomological traits in 2010 and 2011. According to average of 2 years, nut weight, the number of nut per kilogram, nut width, nut length, nut height and nut shell thickness of 22 promising genotypes ranged from 10.26 to 22.32 g, 97.47 to 44.80/kg, 26.80 to 42.47, 16.92 to 25.91, 27.74 to 39.73, and 0.26 to 1.01 mm, respectively. The ash, crude protein, and total fat content of kernels were between 0.85 to 1.94, 3.69 to 7.06 and 1.32 to 4.52, respectively. The genotypes were evaluated with weighted ranking method and the highest general quality score was observed in genotypes of IY17, IYO1, IY42, IY43 and IY12.

Community Characteristics of Wild Fruit Forests Along Elevation Gradients and the Relationships Between the Wild Fruit Forests and Environments in the Keguqin Mountain Region ofⅠii

In this paper,the quantitative relationship between the wild fruit communities and direct environmental factors is discussed on the basis of detailed data on landscape scale habitats obtained through field vegetation investigation.The results from TWINSPAN and DCCA showed that:1) In the distribution sections of the wild fruit forest in the Keguqin Mountain region,the basic patterns characteristic of the different habitats are due to topographic factors,nutrients and moisture conditions;2) The elevation affected the most basic differentiation of plant communities in the study area,indicating that the elevation condition was the most important factor restricting the distribution of the wild fruit communities in the study area;3) The close relationship between the moisture content in the upper soil layer and the elevation reflected the influence of moisture conditions on both wild fruit and herb-layer communities;4) Nutrient differences not only indicated that the habitat conditions were different in themselves but also showed that the present nutrient conditions of the habitats were seriously affected by human activities.In summary,under complicated mountainous topographic conditions,the habitat conditions for the communities differed very significantly,and the combination of elevation,soil moisture content,total nitrogen,slope aspect,and pH value influenced and controlled the formation of community distribution patterns in the study area.