Genetic Relationships among Pistacia Species Studied By Morphological Characteristics and RAPD Marker

Abstract

The aim of this research was to study 33 Pistachio accessions and determine their genetic relationships. Thirty-one morphological characters (17 quantitative and 14 qualitative) together with Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker data were used for this purpose. Factor analysis was used to determine the effective characteristics and the number of main factors which determined seven main factors. Grouping of pistachio accessions by these factors was performed by Ward's method. Among 77 random decamer primers tested, 12 showed good amplification and polymorphism, and a total of 130 markers were produced that 118 were polymorphism. Grouping by morphological characteristics was compared with the results from RAPD analysis which did not produce a significant correlation.