GENETIC DIVERSITY IN EUROPEAN WHEAT AND SPELT BREEDING MATERIAL BASEDON RFLP DATA

Fifty-two winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), nine spring wheat, and 20 spelt (Triticum spelta L.) lines representing part of the European breeding germplasm, were assayed for RFLPs (restriction fragment lengt h polymorphisms) with 56 wheat DNA clones and two barley cDNA clones. Objectives of this study were to (1) determine the level of variation for RFLPs in the wheat and spelt breeding lines, (2) characterize the genetic diversity within the European winter wheat germplasm, and (3) evaluate the usefulness of RFLP markers for pedigree analysis and the grouping of wheat and spelt lines of various origins Seventy-three of the 166 RFLP loci detected with 58 probes and one restriction enzyme w ere polymorphic for the 81 lines. The percentage of polymorphic loci w as greatest for the B genome (58%) and smallest for the D genome (21%) . Among the 81 lines, 271 different RFLP bands were detected. RFLP ban d frequencies of the winter wheat lines differed considerably (greater than or equal to 0.5) from those of the spring wheat lines at five lo ci, and from those of the spelt lines at 17 loci. Eight cultivars that had a major impact as progenitors on the development of improved wint er wheat cultivars accounted for 93% of the observed RFLP bands in win ter wheat. Genetic distance (GD) estimates between two lines ranged be tween 0.01 and 0.21. Mean GD estimates within winter wheat (0.083), wi thin spring wheat (0.108) and within spelt (0.096) were smaller than b etween spring and winter wheat (0.114), and greatest between winter wh eat and spelt (0.132) and spring wheat and spelt (0.148). Principal co ordinate analysis performed on GD estimates revealed a clear separatio n of wheat and spelt germplasm. Novel spelt lines with various proport ions of wheat germplasm were positioned between wheat and traditional spelt lines. The spring wheat lines formed a distinct group at the per iphery of the distribution of the winter wheat lines. Subgroupings of the winter wheat lines according to the cluster analysis were in good agreement with their origin, and lines with common ancestors were grou ped together.