Identification of pecan cultivars and their genetic relatedness as determined by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis

Genetic variation among pecan [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) C. Koch] cultivars was studied using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Using a combination of primers, a unique fingerprint is presented for each of the pecan genotypes studied. The genetic relatedness between 43 cultivars was estimated using 100 RAPD markers. Genetic distances, based on the similarity coefficient of Nei & Li, varied from 0.91 to 0.46, with an average value of 0.66 among all cultivars. The phenetic dendrogram developed from cluster analysis showed relatively weak grouping association. However, cultivars with known pedigrees usually grouped with at least one of the parents and genetic similarity estimates appear to agree with known genetic relationships.