Botanical Status of Wild Relatives to Barley from the Qing-Zang Plateau of China

Abstract

Genetic relationships among one cultivated barley and their eleven wild relatives as well as one perennial wild barley grass from the Qing-Zang plateau of China were investigated by using RAPD analysis.63 random primers were tested' of which 58 produced bands and 36 showed the evidences of polymorphism. A total of 285 clearly bands, with 219 polymorphic, were produced by 36 arbitrary primers. Clearly resolved bands were treated as independent characters and scored for their presence or absence in a binary matrix. Nei's similarity coefficients and simple matching coefficients were calculated respectively. Dendrograms were generated by using the PHYLIP 3.572c software. The results revealed that barley and their wild relatives from the Qing-Zang plateau of China were clustered into a group. It was proposed that wild relatives of barley from the Qing-Zang plateau of China were in species Hordeum vulguve L. Data obtained in our study are in favor of that two-rowed wild barley is the most primitive form in the barley evolution and six-rowed wild one is the immediate progenitor of the cultivated barley. Retrogressive two-rowed wild barley and six-rowed bottle-shaped wild barley are probable the intermediate types in the evolutionary route from two-rowed wild barley to the six-rowed wild forms.