Long-term assessment of morphological and chemical diversity of landrace and bred almond cultivars for industrial applications

Almonds exhibit extensive genetic and phenotypic diversity, enabling their use across a wide range of applications. This diversity underscores the importance of evaluating almond germplasm for morphological, colorimetric, chemical, and nutritional traits to identify unique differences at a cultivar level and link them to potential technological uses. In this study, the kernel phenotypic diversity of 35 almond cultivars, including rarely planted traditional cultivars, which primarily serve as sources of genetic variation, and modern breeding cultivars, was assessed. The evaluations were performed for 41 parameters over a 15-year period. According to the results, traditional landrace cultivars often exhibited more extreme values for morphological and chemical traits, while breeding cultivars showed intermediate characteristics with less noticeable variations. Additionally, we also identified notable patterns of correlation between the measured traits. And finally, we discuss the most suitable industrial applications for the studied cultivars based on standard recommendations for each use.