Scientific Research and Essays Vol. 5 (19), pp. 2987-2996, 4 October, 2010 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/SRE ISSN 1992-2248 ©2010 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Selection and determination of some significant properties of superior walnut genotypes Mikdat Simsek 1 *, Kadir Ugurtan Yilmaz 2 and Ali Riza Demirkiran 3 1 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Bingöl University, Bingol, Turkey. 2 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Kayseri University, Kayseri, Turkey. 3 Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Bingol University, Bingol, Turkey. Accepted 23 June, 2010 This study was conducted to determine some significant characteristics and select superior walnut genotypes within seedling population of Mardin central district and Diyarbakir central districts and their villages during years 2008-2009. Although, Mardin and Diyarbakir central districts have rich walnut genotypes, no studies have been made about walnut trees in the areas up to now. Therefore, this research is very important with respect to be firsting on walnut genotypes in these areas. During this study, firstly about thousand walnut trees were surveyed. Three hundred marked and evaluated in the genotypes. Accoding to results of this research, twelve walnut trees were selected as ‘’promising genotypes’’ with respect to fruit quality properies according to the weighted ranked method. In the physical properties of these walnut genotypes, it was determined that fruit weight, fruit length, fruit width, shell thickness, kernel weight and kernel ratio changed from 20.20 to 12.39 g, from 48.86 to 34.11 mm, from 36.71 to 30.45 mm, from 2.26 to 1.40 mm, from 9.55 to 6.73 g and from 58.04 to 40.85%, respectively. Based on the chemical properties of the selected genotypes, it was determined that protein, oil, moisture and ash contents changed from 20.80 to 13.98%, from 68.70 to 57.13%, 4.23 to 1.90% and 2.83 to 1.78%, respectively. In addition, based on the phenological properties of the these genotypes, it was observed that protandrous, protogynous and homogamouus ratios of flowering habits determined to be 50.00%, 33.33% and 16.16%, respectively. Key words: Walnut, fruit properties, weighted ranked method, Diyarbakir, Mardin. INTRODUCTION The walnut (Juglans regia L.) is economically very important tree species cultivated throughout the world for their timber and nutritional value. The walnut species are found all over the world such as in the West Indies, Japan, China, Southern Asia from India and Turkey, South Eastern Europe to the Carpathian Mountains of Poland, the eastern and southern parts of the United States, Mexico and Central America from Colombia to Argentina (McGranahan and Leslie, 1990). The Persian walnuts are the most economically signi- ficant member of the genus and the species is cultivated for its timber and edible nuts throughout the temperate regions of the world. This species is probably originated *Corresponding author. E-mail: miksimsek2001@yahoo.com. Tel: +90-426-213 25 50 – 51. Fax: +90-426-213 28 66. from the Afghanistan-Iran region. Then, it was introduced to China, Russia and Eastern Europe mainly by ancient tribes. Turkey with various eco-geographical regions is one of the major centers for Persian walnut diversity. Native walnut populations are widely present in this region (Jay-Allemand et al., 1996) and are found as scattered individuals or groups of several trees in the borders of agricultural lands, orchards or by the rivers, usually close to human settlements (Fernandez-lopez et al., 2003). Anatolia has a population of 4.926.985 walnut trees (Anonim, 2007), most of which are wild walnut trees grown from seed. With this number of walnut trees, Anatolia is one of the top walnut producers in the world (Germain, 1986; Sen, 1988; Sen, 1998). Nevertheless, lack of standardization in these products may cause some problems in marketing and some problems even in domestic consumption of these products will be inevitable