lotfali dolatti

The codling moth (CM), Cydia pomonella (L.), is among the economically important pests of pome fruits. This moth causes tremendous crop losses worldwide annually. In the current study, 210 larvae from apple, pear, quince, and walnut orchards were collected from seven locations in Zanjan province, Iran. Four CM-specific microsatellite DNA loci, including Cyd10, Cyd11, Cyd12, and Cyd13, were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). According to the results, the CM population sampled from quince showed the highest number of alleles per locus with the mean observed and effective allele numbers 1.75 and 1.51, respectively. The latter shows the number of alleles with equal frequencies that contributed the most to the observed heterozygosity. Also, the mean observed and expected heterozygosity for this population was 0.508 and 0.258, respectively. The increased observed heterozygosity confirms that the selection acts in favor of heterozygote genotypes. Large genetic distances were detected between the CMpopulation from quince and the populations sampled from the other host plants, the largest between quince and walnut populations. Further, among-population diversity contributed the most to the insect’s genetic diversity, which was 89%. Moreover, some of the populations had a deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p < 0.001). While Cyd13 locus was more polymorphic than the other tested loci, Cyd11 locus was monomorphic. These findings reveal genetic variation in C. pomonella, collected from various fruit trees, indicating differences in some phenotypes noteworthy in integrated pest management.

Oilseeds are an important part of agricultural products which are important for nutrition, in addition to industrial applications. Plant oils are used to cooking, manufacture of cosmetics, plastics, lubricants, and insulators for the electricity and as biofuels (to reduce greenhouse effect). Rapeseed is one of the most important oilseeds that ranks third after soybeans and oil palms. Rapeseed oil contains less than 2% erosic acid and low saturated fatty acid levels, which help to reduce blood cholesterol levels. This research was carried out to investigate the effect of priming of rapeseed with salicylic acid on yield and yield components the research farm at the University of Zanjan.

This research was carried out as a randomized complete block design with four treatments during growing seasons 2014-2015. Treatments in the research included a control (just distilled water), 50, 75 and 100 μM salicylic acid concentrations. The seeds were soaked for 12 hours in salicylic acid solution, then, seeds exposed to airflow and air-dried to return original state before treatment with salicylic acid. After seed treatment with salicylic acid at the pre-mentioned concentrations, the seeds were then sown in four plots in five replications. To remove the marginal effect and evaluate the factors, the 7 plants in the middle row of each plot were randomly marked. The relevant traits measured 15 days after the physiological maturity of rapeseed.

The results indicated that seed priming with salicylic acid caused a significant difference in yield, yield components and dependent traits. Salicylic acid treatments significantly increased the number of stems, pods, length and dry weight the plant, length of the pods and number of seeds in each pod, the seeds weight in main and secondary stems, total weight of seeds and dry weight of roots compared to control. In contrast, no significant effect was observed on the empty pods and 1000- seeds weight.

The results of this research showed that seed priming with salicylic acid can increase yield and yield components of rapeseed plants. This is due to the effect of salicylic acid on the number of pods in plants and the number of seeds in pods. Also, plant height and the secondary stems in plants increased with salicylic acid application. In addition, height increase, resulted in more development of reproductive organs, also allowed for an increase of leaf area index and greater carbon absorption potential in plants.

Totally, 3200 and 320 young worker bees were investigated morphologically and molecularly respectively. The four important honey bee microsatellite loci, A24, A28, A29, A113, indicated a considerable level of genetic diversity among the nation’s northwest honey bee populations and, considering average number of alleles per locus (3.25-5.75) and, average expected heterozygosity (0.445-0.701) high level of variability was shown. Moreover, according to molecular analysis of variance (AMOVA), intra-population and inter-population genetic diversity were estimated to be 70% and 30% respectively. In addition, statistical analysis of morphological characteristics using Principle Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that northwestern honey bee population of Iran could be divided into, at least, three groups. Considering the high genetical diversity of honey bee in northwest Iran, establishing queen rearing stations and executing interbreeding programs for honey bee population in northwest Iran seems to be necessary. Furthermore, considering the high level of polymorphism in the studied markers, they are recommended to be applied for Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping, Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) and, other related investigations.