Evaluation of Some Local and Registered Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) Varieties Based on SRAP Markers

Abstract

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.), a member of the Asteraceae family, is an important plant grown in the world as a source of vegetable oil. In addition, it is a versatile crop that is also used as biodiesel, animal feed, spice, dye, and medicinal plant. In this study, SRAP markers were used to determine the genetic diversity and relationships between four local and three registered safflower cultivars for use in cross-breeding programs. The twelve primer combinations yielded a total of 101 bands, including 33 polymorphic bands. The level of polymorphism of SRAP markers which were represented by the average number of total bands (NTB) (8.4), the average number of polymorphic bands (NPB) (2.8), polymorphic band ratios (PBR%) (34.5%), resolving power (RP) (1.48), effective multiplex ratio (EMR) (1.17), and marker index (MI) (0.43) was low. Conversely, polymorphism information content (PIC) (0.35), Nei’s gene diversity (h) (0.36) and Shannon's information index (I) (0.55) showed a significant genetic variation in the safflower genotypes studied. The polymorphism information content of the SRAP primer combinations used in the study ranged from 0.24 to 0.46, with an average of 0.35. Genetic similarity was calculated according to Dice similarity and varied from 0.12 to 0.92, with a mean genetic similarity (GS) of 0.58. The cophenetic correlation between the Dice similarity matrix and corresponding dendrogram obtained by SRAP (r = 0.95) revealed very good compliance. The genetically close genotypes were Remzibey05 - TR64702 and TR49119 - TR42630 (GS=0.91). Also, Dinçer5-118 and Yenice5-38 were the most genetically distant varieties (GS=0.12). Dinçer5-118 was very different from other genotypes (GS=0.29).