Using amplified fragment length polymorphisms and simple sequence length polymorphisms to identify cultivars of brown and white milled rice

Increase in world rice consumption combined with the recent World Trade Organization General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs agreement on import tariffs have resulted in a need for a method to distinguish between white milled rife (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars sold at a premium from other milled cultivars, We have used two DNA-based methods, amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) and simple sequence length polymorphisms (SSLPs), to distinguish six genetically related long-grain rice cultivars, and a premium Basmati cultivar. Of the two methods, AFLPs proved difficult to reproduce due to the quality of DNA that could he extracted from the samples, while SSLPs showed sufficient variation to distinguish all seven cultivars with only a small number of markers. Our study demonstrates that, using white milled grains, SSLPs are a more robust and efficient method than AFLPs for the identification of rice cultivars. We also report the development of six new SSLP primer sets.