Molecular typing of Italian sweet chestnut cultivars by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis

The sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) is a typical nut crop of the Mediterranean basin, whose importance is related to both fruit and wood production. Chestnut cultivars and clonal variants are often classified according to morphological traits and geographic origin. This approach makes discrimination among cultivars ambiguous and difficult. Here we present a Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) based procedure for molecular typing of chestnut cultigens. In particular we used this technique to identify the most commercial Castanea sativa cultivars of the Campania Region, the leader, in Italy, in sweet chestnut fruit production.