SELECTION OF GOOD MALE DATE PALM POLLINATORS FOR IMPROVING BOTH YIELDS AND FRUIT QUALITY, USING MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS OF POLLINATORS USING ISSR MARKERS

This investigation was carried out during three successive seasons (2011, 2012 and 2013) at Siwa Oasis, Matruh Governorate and Tamiya District, Fayoum Governorate. The investigation included three types of experiments; the first was concerned with the evaluation of twenty chosen seedling palm males in order to select the most promising males. Five male pollinizers were selected according to spathes number, flowers number/spathe, start and duration of spathe burst, pollen grains weight, pollen grains viability (at Siwa Oasis in 2011 and 2012 seasons). The numerical selection of selected male palms showed that pollinizer No. 5 (98.9 units), No. 14 (98.8 units), No. 7 (83.6 units), No. 12 (81.9 units) and No. 13 (81.8 units). The results indicated that the five selected pollinators increased the yield of both Seewy and Barhee cultivars in both two seasons (2012 and 2013) grown at Tamiya District, Fayoum Governorate. Pollinizer No. 12 induced an early harvesting in both Barhee and Seewy cultivars, while pollinizer No. 7 gave the highest yield in both Seewy and Barhee cultivars as well as moisture percentage. Meanwhile, pollinizer No. 12 gave the highest values of total sugar content and TSS % in Seewy cultivar. The results indicated that pollinizer No. 13 gave the highest dry matter %. Also, the results indicated that pollinizer No. 14 gave the highest fruit dimensions as well as both fruit weight and flesh weight. The pollinizer No. 5 gave the lowest seed weight in both two seasons. The selected five pollinators seedling were genetically discriminated by inter-simple sequence repeats for characterization and construction of genetic linkage maps and the molecular genetic diversity among the five selected pollinators. The results indicated that pollinizers No. 12 and 14 recorded the highest similarity (100%), while the lowest similarity (0.0%) was detected between pollinizer No. 7 and No. 13.