Genetic Relatedness among Wild and Cultivated Almond Genotypes Using Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) Markers in Jordan

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was used to study the genetic relatedness between 16 almond cultivars (Prunus. Dulcis) grown at field gene bank (Al-M shaqer Research Station), wild genotypes and farmers orchards genotypes in Jordan. Five primers showed polymorphic bands were used for construction dendrogram and similarity matrix. Similarity values among the studied genotypes were ranged from 0.000 to 0.500. High similarity values were obtained between the two sweet almond cultivars Fuksii (0.500) and Tuono (0.480). RAPD analysis confirmed the existence of genetic variation among tested almond cultivars. Oja cultivar was the most distant compared to the rest of the cultivars, even, wild types and sweet genotypes were grouped separately. Using a minimum number of samples with the most polymorphic RAPD primers was a key for having rapid results of genetic relationships among almond genotypes