Molecular characterization of diversity and relationship among almond [<i style="">Prunus dulcis</i> Miller (D.A.Webb)] cultivars and indigenous selections

Abstract

Amplification of genomic DNA from 13 almond [<i style="">Prunus dulcis</i> Miller (D.A.Webb)] genotypes was carried out using 15 random decamer primers. Only 13 primers generated a total of 65 scorable bands, of which 32 (49.23%) were polymorphic. Most of the genotypes under present study were not defined by a single marker but a set of several markers; however, GP-10 and GP-14 were distinctly identifiable from rest of the genotypes with unique bands obtained with OPP-10, OPP-14, OPP-15 and OPP-19. The similarity coefficient value between 13 genotypes ranged from 0.6557 to 0.9491. UPGMA based dendrogram on similarity coefficient was constructed and 13 genotypes were clustered into different sub-groups, more or less according to their origin. Seedling selections GP-10, GP-14, GP-17 and GP-19 were more divergent as they formed different groups in the dendraogram and thus, can be used in hybridization programmes with exotic introductions like Nonpariel, Drake, IXL, Promorskij, Pranyaj and Merced.