Identification of Rabbiteye Blueberry Cultivars (Vaccinium ashei Reade) and Analysis of Genetic Relationships Using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP)

Abstract

Proper cultivar identification is a requisite for commercial planting and breeding nurseries of cross-pollinated blueberry (Vaccinium ashei Reade) cultivars to insure high crop yields and optimize germplasm maintenance and utilization. Fourteen rabbiteye blueberry cultivars and three non-identified clones were screened with amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis with the aim of developing a fast and reliable identification technique. The selective primer pair applied (M-CTG/ E-ACC), which was previously tested, resulted in a large number of reproducible polymorphic fragments for cultivar identification. After comparison of the AFLP fingerprints, the Jaccard similarity indexes were calculated, and an UPGMA dendrogram was constructed. It was revealed that the three non-identified clones belong to the Tifblue' cultivar. Moreover, AFLP technique proved to be a fast, successful and reliable way in rabbiteye blueberry identification.