Results of quantitative parameters evaluation of leaves of some fruit and berry Rosaceae cultivars and hybrids

The leaves of higher plants reveal a wide range of structural and ecofunctional differences expressed for taxa of various ranks, for representatives of ecological groups, as well as associated with adaptation to a complex of biotopic conditions. Among the quantitative indicators determined in the study of leaf phytomass samples there are some detected by direct measurement and others detected by calculating. The second group of indicators includes, in particular, the leaf mass per area (LMA) parameter. In nature, this indicator reveals differences within two orders for plants of various life forms (from the minimum in freshwater hydrophytes to the maximum in desert inhabitants). Functional groups of plants are characterized by unequal level of LMA plasticity in the gradient of abiotic conditions (such as light, temperature, moisture, edaphic regime). Evaluation of leaf apparatus parameters is widely demanded in various actual directions (plant ecology, forestry, environmental protection, cultivars study, etc.). In this paper we present some generalized data related to the results of the study of the leaf structure for some fruit and berry Rosaceae cultivars and hybrids (25 varieties of pears, 15 - apple, 13 - garden strawberries, 7 - clone rootstocks for stone fruit crops), for which the Scientific Research Institute «Zhigulevskiye Sady» specialists carry out cultivars study. We performed a row ranking procedure and constructed distribution histograms for the integrated data blocks for each group of objects, using the Excel. We turned to the percentage of the proportion of variables corresponding to different levels of LMA. The distribution analysis of generalized data on the LMA index showed perspectivity for comparing groups of objects of different systematic (varietal) accessories and for detection of dissimilarity trends between them.