Cultivar identification in olive based on RAPD markers

One hundred and thirteen olive (Olea europaea L.) accessions were character ized using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Forty-five po lymorphic RAPD markers were obtained enabling us to distinguish 102 differe nt RAPD profiles. The approximate estimation of the probability of obtainin g the same RAPD profile for two different trees was between 6.75 x 10(-5) a nd 4.82 x 10(-14). A dendrogram was constructed using Ward's minimum varian ce algorithm based on chi-square distances. This led to a more clear-cut cl assification of profiles than the classical approach of unweighted pair gro up method with arithmetic average. Twenty-four clusters of RAPD profiles we re shown in Ward's dendrogram. Reliability of the dendrogram structure was checked using variance analysis. RAPD data exhibited an acceptable resolvin g power for cultivar identification. A combination of three primers was pro posed for rapid molecular identification of cultivars in collections and in nurseries.