RAPD PROFILE VARIATION AMONGST PROVENANCES OF NEEM

Neem, described as a tree for solving global problems, is an evergreen , long-lived, multipurpose tree of the tropics with a wide distributio n range in India. It is believed to be highly cross-pollinated. Inter- provenance variations have been reported in neem in case of morphologi cal and physiological characters. Yet no reports about the genetic det erminism for these variations are available to our knowledge. In order to have an idea about the extent and/or nature of genetic (DNA) varia tion in neem, the powerful RAPD technique has been employed. RAPD prof iles of 34 accessions/provenances of neem were generated with 200 deca mer random primers, of which the data from the 49 primers, that result ed in reproducible amplification products, were considered for analysi s. Based on the presence/absence of bands, a similarity matrix was com puted. Dendrogram was constructed by UPGMA method based on the pairwis e similarities amongst the RAPD profiles. The similarities in RAPD pro files amongst the different DNAs was more than that expected due to th e cross-pollinated nature of the tree and furthermore, these more-than -expected similarities were not due to random chance. These results su ggest that neem may have a narrow genetic base.