Abstract

The object of this study was to detect genetic similarities and distances between cultivated Manzanilla and wild type olives by random amplified polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR) technique. In this study, the cultivated type olive Manzanilla was supplied from Olive Research Institute of Turkey and the wild type olives from the villages of Manisa, Izmir and Mugla provinces. Genomic DNA’s were extracted from young leaves and PCR was used to generate RAPD bands. Sixty random primers obtained from Operon technology were tested by RAPD-PCR (OP-A, OP-I, OP-Q). Thirty of 60 primers used in the study provided 150 considerably polymorphic bands and the average number of bands was defined as 5. Comparisons of cultivated and wild type olives are important for understanding genetic relation. It was determined that the genetic distance values varied between 0.0665 and 0.2863 and genetic similarity values varied between 0.9356 and 0.7511. It was observed that the samples most close to each other were wild 8 and wild 3 and the samples most distant from each other were wild 5 and Manzanilla, in accordance with such genetic distance and similarity values.

Key words: Manzanilla, RAPD, PCR, wild olives.