Characterization of carob germplasm (Ceratonia siliqua L) in Sicily

Sixteen carob cultivars were studied to evaluate pulp and seed yield with regard to endosperm percentage, to determine the overall degree of polymorphism of the characters and to detect similarities among cultivars. Bean size and numbers of normal and aborted seeds were characters with a certain degree of polymorphism The low between-year variability observed suggests that differences in the variables could be attributed to genetic factors. A high year-to-year variation was observed only for the number of aborted seeds. Seed characteristics showed small changes both between years and among cultivars. Out of all the variables, PCA identified four principal components that explained more than 80% of the total variance. The first two principal components were related to qualitative characters and were useful in ranking cultivars. Plots of the principal components scores separated some cultivars for particular characteristics for industrial purposes.