Analysis of genetic diversity among Indian garlic (Allium sativum L.) cultivars and breeding lines using RAPD markers

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA markers were used to assess the genetic diversity among 23 commercially released varieties and breeding lines of garlic along with onion as an out-group. A total of 100 operon decamer primers were screened in duplicate and fourteen of these primers were selected for further testing. The number of bands per primer varied from 3 to 19, with an average of 11.5. Based on RAPD data, similarity values among garlic genotypes ranged from 0.97 to 0.47 with a mean value of 0.72. A low degree of similarity (0.10–0.15) was observed with onion. The UPGMA dendrogram constructed using Jaccard's similarity matrix discriminated all the genotypes into four clusters. Cluster I comprised of 14 genotypes with a similarity index of about 89%. Cluster II comprised of only one line, SKAUG 151 that had a similarity index of 62% with Cluster I. Cluster III comprised of 8 garlic genotypes at a distance of about 52%. Variation amongst the garlic accessions was about 48%, whereas, with onion it showed a dissimilarity of 90%.The clustering pattern of garlic genotypes in the present study discriminated them as per the vernalization requirement for bulb formation.