APPLICATION OF MOLECULAR METHODS AND STATISTICAL-ANALYSES FOR DISCRIMINATION OF ACCESSIONS AND CLONES OF VETIVER GRASS

Because (i) origins and genealogies of vetiver grass have been poorly documented, and (ii) morphological uniformity and infrequent flowering precluded accurate identification of selected clones, an investigatio n was undertaken to link molecular methods with rigorous biometric ana lysis to discriminate accessions and clones. Successful DNA profiling is highly dependent on the reproducibility of the assay. Our ability t o generate consistent results may have been a result of (i) genomic DN A quality, (ii) rigorous oligonucleotide primer selection, and (iii) D NA amplification protocol stringency. Because of the low level of repl icate variability, we were able to bring a high level of resolution to the analysis of identity. Though genetic redundancy may be more diffi cult to establish than genetic uniqueness, the data support with a hig h degree of certainty that the accessions 'Huffman' and 'Boucard' were essentially the same genotype. A contrasting case to the Huffman-Bouc ard example was found among the putative clones of 'PI 196257'. Our an alysis indicated that each clone of PI 196257 was genetically unique.