GENETIC-ANALYSIS AMONG AND WITHIN POPULATIONS FORMING ECOTYPES AND CULTIVARS OF LUCERNE, MEDICAGO-SATIVA (LEGUMINOSAE), USING RAPD FRAGMENTS

We conducted this study to determine whether the analysis of the popul ation frequency of individual RAPD fragments amplified from DNA of sin gle seedlings could be used to discriminate cultivars of lucerne and c ompare the relatedness of cultivars of differing geographic and geneti c origin. Canonical discriminant analysis of RAPD banding data obtaine d from amplification of DNA from 40 seedlings of each of ten cultivars (six Iranian ecotypic cultivars, two cultivars from New Zealand and t wo from the USA) with one selected primer enabled discrimination of mo st cultivars (78% of pairwise comparisons at P < 0.01 among the ten cu ltivars examined in this study). Comparison of the Mahalanobis general ized distances among the cultivars produced results for genetic relate dness which were generally consistent with geographical origin and bre eding relationships. Cultivar uniformity was assessed by determining t he percentage of seedlings correctly classified into the named cultiva r; this was variable among cultivars and the Iranian ecotypic cultivar s had a particularly wide range of variability. Analysis of population genetics in lucerne using RAPD banding data may be useful for plant i mprovement, in descriptions of new cultivars and also when assessing c ultivar purity in seed certification programmes.