Abstract

Genetic diversity of forty (40) clones of Dalbergia sissoo Roxb was analyzed using   randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers by selecting 30 decamer primers, which were later reduced to 10 based on the preliminary PCR amplification. A total of 129 distinct DNA fragments (bands) were amplified, of which 104 bands were polymorphic ranging from 200 to 1300 base pairs. The number of amplified bands per clone varied from 11 to 15 and polymorphism percentage ranged from 18.18 to 100 with an average of 79.23. Jaccard similarity coefficient ranged from 0.66 to 0.95 showing a wide range of variability among the clones. The maximum similarity was found between clone 10 and 12 and the most dissimilar clones were 9032 and 5030 with minimum similarity coefficient of 0.66. The clones were grouped into two clusters which were further divided into sub-clusters. The sub-cluster II consisted maximum of twelve clones followed by cluster I (11 clones) and cluster VI (7 clones) whereas clusters IV, VII and VIII consisted single clone each.  In fact, clone 5022 was found to be the most divergent clone which could be used for number of combinations to be established in the seed orchards and as a parent in hybridization programme.

Key words: Dalbergia sissoo, genetic divergence, seed orchards, similarity coefficient.

Abbreviation

PIC, polymorphism information content; CPTs, candidate plus trees.