Morphological characteristic of fruit, drupes and seeds genotypes of Ziziphus jujuba Mill.

The aim of this work is to discriminate 28 Ziziphus jujuba Mill. genotypes (ZJ-01 - ZJ-28) based on weight and morphological characteristics of fruit, stones and seeds. These genotypes maintained in a clone repository (Nova Kachovka, Ukraine) were chosen for investigation as potential species for cultivation and use in Slovakia. The fruits were collected at the period of their full maturity (October); their morphometric parameters were following: weight from 2.90 g (ZJ-13) to 28.99 g (ZJ-22), length from 20.73 mm (ZJ-08) to 44.84 mm (ZJ-04), and width from 16.64 mm (ZJ-13) to 38.87 mm (ZJ-22). Isolated stones were also analysed, and their weight was from 0.173 g (ZJ-07) to 0.731 g (ZJ-20), length from 12.84 mm (ZJ-08) to 28.67 mm (ZJ-04), and width from 5.06 mm (ZJ-07) to 9.74 mm (ZJ-01). The weight of the seeds was ranging from 20.00 mg (ZJ-25) to 69.11 mg (ZJ-12), length from 7.24 mm (ZJ-15) to 11.85 mm (ZJ-04), and width was from 3.86 mm (ZJ-05) to 6.84 mm (ZJ-12). Significant differences in the size, shape and color of fruits, stones and seeds were also identified. The pulp, seedless stones and seeds constitute 92.81% (ZJ-26) - 98.32% (ZJ-04), 1.36% (ZJ-04) - 6.27% (ZJ-20), and 0.25% (QA-24, QA-25) - 1.21% (ZJ-16) of the total fruits weight, respectively The shape index of the fruits was found in the range of 1.04 (ZJ-08) to 2.00 (ZJ-12 and ZJ-25). The shape indexes of stones and seeds were found ranging from 1.74 (ZJ-08) to 4.53 (ZJ-05) and from 1.32 (ZJ-23) to 2.74 (ZJ-04), respectively. The relative weight of pulp was determined in the range from 92.76% (ZJ-13) to 98.32% (ZJ-04) and the relative weight of seed was determined in the range of 0.25% (ZJ-24 and ZJ-25) to 1.16% (ZJ-26). The Chinese jujube genotypes of this study were grouped based on hierarchical clustering of the fruit, stone and seed characteristics