JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

---

In order to determine the most important quantitative and qualitative characteristics of pomegranate fruit and its components for categorizing the genotypes, a study was carried out using 24 genotypes. In this study 28 quantitative and qualitative characteristics of pomegranate fruit and seed were evaluated. Analysis of variance showed that all of the characteristics in examined genotypes were significant, showing high variability in characteristics. Results of simple correlation analysis showed the existence of significant, positive and negative correlations among some important characteristics. Also, factor analysis showed that most of fruit juice, aril and seed characteristics constituted the main factors. Effective characteristics categorized in seven factors accounted for 89% of total variance. For each factor, eigen value more than 0.7 was considered significant. Cluster analysis was performed using these seven factors and genotypes, in the distance of 9, were divided into 5 main clusters. These groups were mainly distinct in fruit flavor and soft seededness. Furthermore, by using three main factors, genotypes positions determined in 3-plot analysis, which distinguished sweeter genotypes from sweet-sour and sour genotypes.

---

In this experiment the response of persimmon fruit, cv. Karaj, to astringency removal by ethanol and the effects of this treatment on some important fruit characteristics were investigated. Fruits were harvested at three different dates and at each date based on the previous results, and then modified treatments were applied. The best ethanol astringency removal treatment in this study was 10 ml of 38% ethanol per kg fruit for 48 hours. The period after ethanol treatments had no effect on the reduction of soluble tannin concentration, although it resulted in the reduction of flesh firmness and increased soluble pectin. Ethanol treatments and also temperature conditions reduced flesh firmness and increased ground color of fruits however, the effect of ethanol treatments was more than temperature conditions. Temperature conditions increased ethylene production, thus reducing the flesh firmness and increasing the ground color index of fruits. Ethanol treatments did not increase the ethylene production, and it seems that its effects on some characteristics are due to ethanol itself or factors other than ethylene.

---

Seedlessness is the most important characteristic of fruit quality for raisin and table grapes. Grape breeding at University of Tehran, Karaj branch, Iran started in 1999 with crossing some selected seedless and seeded cultivars at the end of evaluation of 90 cultivars in grapevine collection of College of Agriculture in Karaj. Out of 1400 progeny obtained from 26 different crosses, 381 of them which produced fruits were evaluated during growing seasons of 2006 & 2007. Progenies were divided into four groups of completely seedless, semi-seedless, semi-seeded and completely seeded, according to seed trace or seed weight. Results classified progeny to 11% completely seedless, 13.6% semi-seedless, 24% semi seeded and 51.2% completely seeded. Percentages of seedless progeny for four male parents of Askary, Yaghooti, Bidane Sefid and Bidane Ghermez were 15.4%, 10.8%, 9.3% and 10.6%, respectively. Meanwhile, percentages of seedless progeny for female parents of Muscut of Hamburg, Ghezel Uzum, Dizmary, Rajabi Sefied, Ali Baba, Alhaghi Ghermez and Tabariz were 5.4%, 5%, 17.5%, 13.2 %, 1.4%, zero and 36%, respectively. Results also showed that among male parents, Yaghooti and Bidane Ghermez cultivars and among female parents, Tabarze cultivar had better backgrounds to transmit stenospermocarpic seedlessness characteristics.

---

A population of offspring from a cross between ‘Golden Smoothee’ × ‘Shafi Abadi’ apple which was developed by two methods of controlled pollination (with and without covering after controlled pollination) was used to investigate the inheritance of microsatellite alleles and the necessity of covering in controlled pollination of apple. DNA was extracted from 60 seedlings (30 from each method) as well as corresponding parents and the probable source of unwanted pollen. Four microsatellite loci (CH03d12, CH03d07, CH04a12 and CH03c07) which were polymorphic among parents were selected and their florescent primers were prepared. DNA amplification was carried out using different colored florescent primers, and alleles size were determined using ABI377 automatic gene sequencer and Gene Scan Software version 2.0 according to internal standards. Results showed that all seedlings shared one allele at each locus with each parent indicating their hybrid and true to type nature. There were no differences between two methods of controlled pollination in terms of unwanted pollination and there were no off type seedling originating from unwanted pollen source. Allele distribution among the progenies showed their co-dominant mode of inheritance, and no significant difference with Mendelian co-dominant ratio (1:1:1:1) was observed using chi square (x2) test. These results showed that there was no need for covering after controlled pollination of apple at least for less sensitive cases such as cultivar breeding which takes lots of time and cost for controlled pollination of many flowers in a limited time span. Results also showed the importance and potential of microsatellite loci in detecting parent-offspring relationship prior to inheritance study of characters and alleles, bulk segregation analysis, gene and linkage map and historical reconstruction of fruit tree pedigree.

---

The contamination of soils with lead is a major environmental problem throughout the world. Phytoextraction of heavy metals from contaminated soils has the prospect of being a more economic in situ alternative. Chemically enhanced phytoextraction has been proposed as an effective approach to remove heavy metals from contaminated soil through the use of high biomass plants. Using a pot experiment, the effects of the application of three rates of EDTA at 0, 1.5 and 3 mmol/kg soil and sulfuric acid at 0, 0.5 and 1 mmol/kg soil with two rates of Pb at 0 and 200 mmol.kg-1 on the uptake of Pb by corn (Zea mays L. single cross 704 var.), sunflower (Helianthus annuus L. ajili var.), and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L. varamin var.) plants were studied. The results showed that EDTA was more effective than sulfuric acid in increasing the concentration of Pb in shoots and roots for all plants studied. The maximum amount with application of EDTA to soil for shoots of corn, sunflower, and cotton were 4.07, 6.49 and 31.33 times higher than the control, respectively. EDTA also enhanced Pb content of roots of corn, sunflower, and cotton 3.38, 1.63 and 1.09 times higher than the control, respectively. DTPA-Pb was higher in soil treated with EDTA than sulfuric acid. The application of EDTA also significantly increased shoot-to-root ratio of Pb in plants examined. The results of this study showed that corn was able to phytoextract more Pb than sunflower and cotton.

---

Most of researches related to hydraulic jump have been done on horizontal and rough beds, and little attempt has been made on rough beds with adverse slopes. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of rough beds with adverse slope on hydraulic jump characteristics. The variations of energy loss in stilling basins with three adverse slopes and three different roughnesses were studied. Results showed that increase of roughness caused that relative depth of jump in stilling basins with rough bed and adverse slope decreased as compared to horizontal smooth beds. The experiments were performed on rough beds in different conditions where Froude number ranging between 4.9 and 7.8. Result showed that reduction of relative depth was about 31.15%. Results also showed that in such cases the relative energy losses are more than that for classic conditions.

---

Today, modern irrigation systems are constructed at a very high cost to operate for optimal use of water and soil. Lack of appropriate technical, social and economic studies, caused high maintenance costs of these facilities during operation. Water resources have been polluted due to industrial development, increasing human population and non-compliance with environmental standards. Most of hydraulic structures are built in areas with poor water quality. Furthermore, engineering properties of fine-grained soils, especially the clay soils, depend on factors such as salinity of solute in the pore water. So that any change in salinity of solute leads to change in the physical and mechanical properties of soils, and consequently make damage to hydraulic structure. This study investigated the effect of water salinity on engineering properties of fine-grained soils. For this purpose, NaCl, with 5 different levels (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.41 and 0.72 mol/L) was added to the soil and the mechanical properties of soil including compaction, shear parameters, Atterberg limits and consolidation parameters were investigated. The results showed that the addition of NaCl had made no significant changes to the maximum dry unit weight and optimum moisture content of the soil, but it reduced cohesion of soil and increased the internal friction angle .Also, Limit Liquid (LL) are decreased, but it had little effect on the Plastic Limit(PL) of soil.
 

---