Abstract

A set of 85 heirloom apple cultivars aimed for long-term preservation in two germplasm collections in Sweden and Finland was evaluated with 8 SSR primer pairs to evaluate genetic diversity and genetic relatedness. An additional set of 16 European cultivars was included for comparison. The eight SSR primer pairs amplified 9 loci and 105 alleles. Genetic analyses performed by MDS indicated some differentiation between Swedish and Finnish cultivars, with European cultivars intermixed with the Swedish. The existence of three groups was, however, indicated by a Bayesian model-based clustering. One of the groups was clearly dominated by Swedish cultivars and another by Finnish. The third group included almost equal proportions of representatives from all three areas. The obtained results confirmed the genetic distinctness of Finnish apple cultivars, which can be explained by climate adaptation and admixture with a Russian gene pool. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Apple; Genetic diversity; Genetic structure; Genetic resources; Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR); Malus x domestica

Published in

Scientia Horticulturae
2013, Volume: 162, pages: 43-48
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Gustavsson, Larisa

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sehic, Jasna

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Zborowska, Anna

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2013.07.040

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/55286