Study of diversity in cultivated flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) based on morphological traits and RAPD Molecular marker

Biodiversity is very important in species survival and plant breeding. The relationships of 10 Flax cultivars were investigated using 13 Random Amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD) primers and 13 morphological traits. Thirteen arbitrary RAPD primers amplified 169 reproducible and scorable loci, which 87 bands were polymorphic (51%). The average number of polymorphic bands was 6.6 per primer. Genetic similarity among cultivars ranged from 0.67 to 0.86 with an average polymorphism information content of 0.16. The polymorphic information content reached the highest value of 0.29 at loci OPD-03 and OPA-06 (0.28). The dendrogram was depicted using NTSYSpc 2.02 software and six main clusters obtained. In morphological part, 13 different traits were measured and compared. Both markers showed high level of diversity among studied cultivars. According to the results obtained from cluster analysis, 97-2, 97-5, 97-24 and 97-25 varieties showed greatest genetic distance from other varieties, which can be used in breeding programs of Flax. Furthermore, 97-25, 97-24 and 97-5 varieties, had highest amount of seed yield. The results also propose that RAPD marker is a useful tool for evaluation of genetic diversity and relationships among different Flax varieties.