Title: ASSESSMENT OF PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY IN TUNISIAN CARROT (Daucus carota
subsp. sativus) LANDRACES
Authors: Jihen Benamor*,NajlaMezghani*, David Spooner
, KhawlaHamdi
, AichaGhezal
and NejiTarchoun ,Tunisia
Abstract: Knowledge of the morphological diversity of a germplasm collection is fundamental for
genebank managers and plant breeders. The main objective of the present work was to
characterize 33 landraces of carrot from 13 different regions of Tunisia, based on 34 agromorphological characters related to leaves and roots. The Shannon-Weaver Diversity (H’) index
was used to study the phenotypic diversity. The estimated H’ ranged from 0.19 for core colour
compared to cortex colour (RCCCC) to 0.99 for leaf division (LD). Analysis of variance
revealed significant differences among landraces for all quantitative characters. Stepwise
multivariate analyses were carried out to identify the useful characters that can distinguish
among landraces. This study showed that qualitative characters were the best for the delimitation
of landraces in this collection. Cluster analysis permitted the subdivision of carrot collection into
four distinct groups independent of their geographic distribution. This information will be
helpful to curators in the management and improvement of carrot germplasm in Tunisia
