GENETIC DIVERGENCE STUDY OF SAFFLOWER (CARTHAMUS TINCTORIUS L.) USING MOLECULAR MARKERS

摘要

A study was carried out at PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan during theyear 2016 to assess genetic divergence among 36 local and 30 exotic safflower (Carthamustinctorius L.) accessions utilizing random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Theresults revealed that out of 15 RAPD primers, seven were polymorphic. Further, the amplificationproduct yielded 64 number of total loci with 6.4 as an average number of alleles for each loci inlocal accessions whereas 72 number of total loci with 7.2 as an average number of alleles foreach loci in exotic germplasm. The values of similarity co-efficient for local and exotic germplasmranged from 0.32 (32 percent) to 1.00 (100 percent) and 0.40 (40 percent) to 1.00 (100 percent),respectively. Cluster analysis based on the data from RAPD markers, divided local germplasminto two distinct groups, which revealed two unique genotypes L6 and L21. Similarly, in exoticgermplasm, cluster analysis dividedexotic germplasm into two distinct groups and showed threeunique genotypes E3, E5 and E28 which were found to be the most diverse in the germplasm.