Abstract

Forty five Sefrou carob populations from three sites were stud ied to assess their genetic variation based on pod and seed measures. Locust beans were characterise d by: length, width, thickness, chord, weight, number and weight of s eeds, aborted seeds rate and seeds yield in addition to the twist coefficient. For seed s, we measured the length, width, the ratio "width/length", the thickness, the ratio "width/t hickness", the weight a nd the yields of the various parts of the seed i.e., the endosperm , the embryo-cotyledons and the tegument. The results showed that the chord, the weight and the yields of seeds a nd pulp of the carob pod, and the seed weight allow a better discrimi nation between the three surveyed locations. However, there were no differences between the three localities regarding the width and thickness of the carob pod, and the seed tegument yield. Generally, the intra-locations changes show a very highly significant differen ce between the trees of each location for all the parameters studied. These results show that environmental conditions do not explain alone the variation in pomologi cal parameters followed and th ereby there would be probably a genotypic variability within each locality.