Molecular and agromorphological assessment of cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) genotypes of India

R. Dasmohapatra, S. Rath, B. Pradhan and G.R. Rout

Department of Fruit Science, Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar- 751 003, Odisha, India,

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37855/jah.2014.v16i03.35

Key words: Cashew, genetic similarity, molecular marker, genetic variability
Abstract: Morphological and PCR based molecular markers were used to assess the genetic diversity of cashew (Anacardium occidentales L.) genotypes of India. Wide genetic variation was observed in respect to nut yield, nut weight, shelling percentage, plant height, trunk girth of the potentially superior genotypes. A wide variation was noticed with regards to fruit quality, colour of fruits, nut yield, nut weight, shelling percentage and apple weight. Twenty RAPD primers and 14 ISSR primers were used to detect the genetic variability among and between the genotypes. One hundred eighty-eight polymorphic bands and 31 monomorphic bands were observed by using both RAPD and ISSR primers. Twenty RAPD primers yielded 19 monomorphic and 84 polymorphic bands with percent of polymorphism was 81.55%. Of a total 116 ISSR bands generated by using 14 ISSR primers, 104 bands (89.65 %) were found to be polymorphic. Cumulative data generated from these two markers precisely arranged genotypes into 14 clusters. It was also noted that the var. BBSR-1 and Vengurla-7 were grouped into a single cluster and phenotypically they are similar with each other. Two dimensional scaling by principal component analysis indicates that some of the genotypes are out grouped. The major bands having 300 - 600 bp generated with PCR based markers can be used for identification of genotypes. This information will be useful for cashew improvement program as well as to assess the variety purity certification program.



Journal of Applied Horticulture