Abstract
The mating system in plant populations is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Proper estimates of the outcrosing rates are often required for planning breeding programmes, conservation and management of tropical trees. However, althoughMoringa oleifera is adapted to a mixed mating system, the proportion of selfing has not been previously estimated. The current work therefore, shows the use of AFLP markers in a mating system study of M. oleifera seed orchard. Data revealed a mixed mating system with a multilocus outcrossing rate (tm) of 0.74. It further demonstrated that AFLP markers, though dominant with a lower information content than co-dominant markers are adequate for the study of the mating system in plant populations. The 26% selfing observed in M. oleifera can lead to overestimation of the proportion of additive genetic variance and appropriate adjustments are therefore required. However, the presence of selfing as well as early sexual maturity (6 months to 1 year) in M. oleiferaprovides an opportunity for developing inbred lines and hybridisation. Additionally, in designing M. oleifera seed orchards, randomisation and minimum distance between related individuals need to be worked out to maximise cross-fertilisation among unrelated clones and minimise selfing or mating among related ramets. Key words: Moringa oleifera, mating system, outcrossing rates, amplified fragment length polymorphism.
Highlights
Moringa oleifera Lam belongs to a monogeneric family of shrubs and trees, the moringaceae (Ramachandran et al, 1980)
The main aims of this study were to test the utility of dominant AFLP markers in estimating outcrossing rates in M. oleifera and use them (AFLP markers) to obtain estimates of outcrossing rates in an M. oleifera seed orchard from Mbololo, Kenya
A χ2 statistic to test the conformity of marker loci to the mixed-mating model, indicated that for seventeen AFLP markers the number of observed progeny individuals for each genotype class from each maternal genotype departed from the expected numbers (Table 2)
Summary
Moringa oleifera Lam belongs to a monogeneric family of shrubs and trees, the moringaceae (Ramachandran et al, 1980). M. oleifera seeds contains flocculants for water purification (Jahn, 1984; Gassenchmidt et al, 1995; Muyibi and Evanson, 1995; Ndabigengesere et al, 1995), antimicrobial substances (Jahn, 1984) and edible oil (Khan et al, 1975; Ramachandran et al, 1980). Other uses of this species are for vegetables, fodder, medicines, gum, food spices, rayon and paper pulp (Jahn et al, 1986; Nautiyal and Venkataraman, 1987; Babu and Rajasekaran, 1991; Jahn, 1991; Mayer and Stelz, 1993; Caceres et al, 1991). These seed sources have been established and maintained by farmers and information is scarce on their genetic quality
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