Polymorphism and DNA markers for asparagus cultivars identified by random amplified polymorphic DNA

DNA polymorphism among five Asparagus officinalis L. cultivars - Imperial, Snow, Steline, UC-157 and Larac, as detected by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), is reported. Thirty one decamer primers were tested, and twenty six of them yielded amplification products. Fourteen primers gave products with at least one polymorphic DNA fragment. Among a total of 119 amplified fragments 33 were polymorphic. These RAPD markers enabled the identification of asparagus cultivars. Unique markers for cultivars were: Snow-bands 475 bp, 772 bp, 412 bp, 935 bp and 820 bp amplified by primers D5, OPA-07, OPA-09, OPA-10 and OPA-18, respectively. Steline-bands 645 bp, 680 bp and 997 bp amplified by primers A32, OPA-03 and OPA-09, respectively. A band 903 bp, amplified by primer OPA-12, is a marker for Imperial, and a band 420 bp, amplified by primer D52, is a marker for Larac. Cultivar UC-157 could be identified by a combination of shared polymorphic bands. The pairwise marker difference between cultivars ranged from 0.08 to 0.17. A phenogram of the genetic relationship based on RAPD fits with the known origin of the cultivars.