Articles
IDENTITY OF DATE PALM (PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA L.) GERMPLASM IN SUDAN: FROM MORPHOLOGY AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERS TO MOLECULAR MARKERS
Article number
859_17
Pages
143 – 153
Language
English
Abstract
Hundreds of date palm cultivars and strains were recognized and selected by farmers through a long history of more than 3000 years of cultivation.
The most common characters used to identify cultivars are tree and fruit morphology as well as softness characters of fruits, which are detectable only at tree maturity.
The objective of this study was to identify date palm germplasm in Sudan using DNA genotyping, in comparison to apparent morphological characters and chemical composition of fruits.
Sixteen microsatellite markers were used to genotype 37 cultivars collected from the country.
Of those cultivars, 15 were subjected to morphological and chemical characterisation.
The results showed high levels of diversity among cultivars in both phenotypic and genetic characteristics.
The expected heterozygosity of tested cultivars was 0.841. However, cluster analysis based on genotyping data showed weak genetic relationships among cultivars.
Based on chemical characters of fruits (p<0.05), fruit and seed morphology (p<0.001), and tree morphology (p<0.001), cultivars were grouped into soft type and dry type; while a comparable relationship was not observed based on microsatellite polymorphism data.
The most common characters used to identify cultivars are tree and fruit morphology as well as softness characters of fruits, which are detectable only at tree maturity.
The objective of this study was to identify date palm germplasm in Sudan using DNA genotyping, in comparison to apparent morphological characters and chemical composition of fruits.
Sixteen microsatellite markers were used to genotype 37 cultivars collected from the country.
Of those cultivars, 15 were subjected to morphological and chemical characterisation.
The results showed high levels of diversity among cultivars in both phenotypic and genetic characteristics.
The expected heterozygosity of tested cultivars was 0.841. However, cluster analysis based on genotyping data showed weak genetic relationships among cultivars.
Based on chemical characters of fruits (p<0.05), fruit and seed morphology (p<0.001), and tree morphology (p<0.001), cultivars were grouped into soft type and dry type; while a comparable relationship was not observed based on microsatellite polymorphism data.
Authors
S. Elshibli , H. Korpelainen
Keywords
date fruits, phenotypic characterisation, DNA genotyping, microsatellite markers, soft dates, dry dates
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