Chilto (Solanum betaceum Cav.) is a traditional Andean crop, appreciated for its high nutritional and commercial value. Despite it is cultivated in many countries, the information about the diversity, and conservation of wild populations is still missing. The objectives of this work were to characterize wild populations of the species in northwestern Argentina, regarding the morphological traits of fruits and seeds, to decompose the observed phenotypic variability, and to look for associations between morphological and geographical distances. Fruit weight, length and equatorial diameter, pericarp thickness, pH, total soluble solids were measured in fruits from nine populations, and then a intra and inter population comparison was performed. The phenotypic variance was decomposed by a nested ANOVA. The associations between geographical and morphological distances were assessed by the Mantel test. A wide variability was found in fruit weight, pericarp thickness, and fruit length (24, 19 and 13% coefficient of variation, respectively). Nested ANOVA revealed significant differences in all fruit and seed traits among and within populations (p < 0.001). Fruit weight and length were the traits with the highest total phenotypic variation. The main contribution to phenotypic variance was made by the environmental variance, which includes differences in temperature, precipitation, humidity but also to the experimental error. There were no associations between morphological and geographical distances; although, neighboring populations showed greater similarity. Chilto wild populations have many important characteristics with high potential as a productive regional alternative and as asource for improvement.

Chilto ( Solanum betaceumCav.) 是一种传统的安第斯作物，因其高营养和商业价值而受到赞赏。尽管在许多国家都有种植，但关于野生种群多样性和保护的信息仍然缺失。这项工作的目的是表征阿根廷西北部物种的野生种群，关于果实和种子的形态特征，分解观察到的表型变异，并寻找形态和地理距离之间的关联。测量了来自 9 个种群的果实的果实重量、长度和赤道直径、果皮厚度、pH 值、总可溶性固形物，然后进行了种群内和种群间的比较。表型方差由嵌套方差分析分解。地理距离和形态距离之间的关联通过 Mantel 测试进行评估。在果实重量、果皮厚度和果实长度方面发现了很大的变异性（变异系数分别为 24%、19% 和 13%）。嵌套方差分析揭示了种群之间和种群内所有果实和种子性状的显着差异（p  < 0.001)。果实重量和长度是总表型变异最大的性状。表型变异的主要贡献是环境变异，包括温度、降水、湿度的差异以及实验误差。形态和地理距离之间没有关联；虽然，相邻的种群表现出更大的相似性。Chilto 野生种群具有许多重要特征，具有作为生产性区域替代品和改进来源的巨大潜力。