MOLECULAR TYPING OF ITALIAN SWEET CHESTNUT CULTIVARS BY RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA ANALYSIS

The sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) is a typical nut crop of the Medi terranean basin, whose importance is related to both fruit and wood pr oduction. Chestnut cultivars and clonal variants are often classified according to morphological traits and geographic origin. This approach makes discrimination among cultivars ambiguous and difficult. Here we present a Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) based procedure for molecular typing of chestnut cultigens. In particular we used this te chnique to identify the most commercial Castanea sativa cultivars of t he Campania Region, the leader, in Italy, in sweet chestnut fruit prod uction.