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Evaluation of genetic diversity among some genotypes of Kentucky bluegrass by RAPD molecular markers

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  • Genetics and Breeding
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Abstract

Genetic improvement of plants need a high genetic diversity and molecular markers offer a powerful tool for its assessment. Poa pratensis has extensive divergence in natural old turfs and pastures in temperate zones of Iran, being useful for breeding programs. In this research, RAPD markers were used to study the genetic diversity of 19 turfgrass genotypes (including 16 genotypes of Poa pratensis along with one genotype from each of Lolium perenne, Cynodon dactylon and Festuca arundinacea species). After screening 100 random 10-mer RAPD primers, 17 primers were selected based on the clarity of their amplified fragments in PCR and the high reproducibility for scoring. From the 284 produced bands, 281 were polymorphic. Cluster analysis of RAPD data was performed using the UPGMA method based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficients. Dendrogram at a similarity of 0.24 gave 5 main clusters. The correlation coefficient between the data matrix and the cophenetic matrix of cluster data was high (r = 0.99), indicating that the clustering dendrogram being highly fitted to similarity matrix. A relatively high genetic similarity was observed between some commercial cultivars and Iranian local genotypes. In addition, this research showed the high genetic diversity among studied genotypes as well as the high efficiency of RAPD markers for evaluation of genetic diversity among turfgrasses.

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Correspondence to Zabihollah Zamani.

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Fard, J.R., Zamani, Z., Moghaddam, M.R.F. et al. Evaluation of genetic diversity among some genotypes of Kentucky bluegrass by RAPD molecular markers. Hortic. Environ. Biotechnol. 53, 298–303 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-012-0120-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-012-0120-5

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