ANATOMÍA DE LA LÁMINA DE HOJA EN OCHO CULTIVARES DE AGUACATE* LEAF LAMINA ANATOMY OF EIGHT AVOCADO CULTIVARS

Currently in the world, there are breeding programs in avocado, aiming to obtain new cultivars and rootstocks to increase productivity and stress-related problems on the soil. In the case of ‘Lamb Hass’; characteristics in leaves have been found such as increased CO 2 assimilation rate and persea mite resistance. These features can be directly related to the leaf anatomy. It is important to know these features in current and new cultivars: ‘Hass’, ‘Reed’, ‘Gwen’, ‘GEM’, ‘Lamb Hass’, ‘Harvest’, BL667 (‘Nobel’) and BL516 (‘Marvel’). During 2007 in Chapingo, Mexico, transverse sections of leaf blades were performed, evaluating anatomical features. There were found variables with no differences between cultivars, which may be because all genotypes used in this study except ‘Reed’, come from a common ancestor ‘Hass’. The cultivars groupings are possible according to the anatomical characteristics of its leaf blade, where, there is a variation that can be interpreted from the physiological aspect and its likenesses by their ancestry. ‘Gwen’, ‘Hass’, ‘Marvel’ and ‘GEMʼ had a wider cuticle and less wide palisade parenchyma cells, while ‘Reed’, ‘Nobel’ and ‘Lamb Hass’, had contrasting features, ‘Harvest’ had intermediate values. The ‘Lamb Hass’ cultivar presented a leaf