Morphological Characterization of Autochthonous Apple Genetic Resources in Montenegro

Autochthonous apple varieties are still keeping their importance in Montenegro and they are valuable resources as human food and an important part of rural landscape. The aim of this study was to study and preserve morphological diversity of 30 autochthonous apple varieties in Montenegro between 2008 and 2010. We found a great variation on blooming period and maturation time among varieties and classified them as very early, early, mid and late for blooming and early, middle, late and very late for maturation. Fruit weight varied in wide range from 40.76 g to 206.74 g and 'Krupnaja', 'Krstovaa' and 'Babovaa' produced biggest fruits (191.83-206.74 g). Soluble solid content (SSC) varied between 11.0 to 16.1 % among varieties and 'Borovaa', 'Aleksandrija', 'Krstovaa', 'DapsiA double dagger anka', 'Bosnika', 'Rebraa' and 'Babovaa' had the highest SSC values imply that they can be commercially used in production of spirits, wine, concentrate and jam and also for drying. Based on 3-year average data for 25 properties, UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean) dendrogram showed a high degree of variability among the studied varieties dividing them into 5 groups and 3 independent accessions.