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Genetic divergence among elephantgrass cultivars assessed by RAPD markers in composit samples

ABSTRACT: Elephantgrass Pennisetum purpureum( Schum.) is native to regions of tropical Africa and wasintroduced in Brazil around 1920 through plantings imported from Cuba. It is currently one of the mostwidespread forage plants throughout the country. At first, there were two cultivars, Napier and Mercker, withwell defined characteristics. New genotypes arose and it is believed that the large number of cultivars existingtoday in germplasm bank is due to duplicates. DNA markers for cultivar characterization are a very valuabletool, especially in situations where morphological and isoenzymatic markers have already been used as inthe case of elephantgrass. Thus RAPD markers were used to estimate the genetic divergence among theNapier group elephantgrass cultivars from the elephantgrass Active Germplasm Bank at EMBRAPA DairyCattle. The polymerase chain reaction with 37 arbitrary primers from the OPERON Technologies series supplied94 polymorphic and 73 monomorphic bands. From the matrix of complement of the Nei index, cluster analysisby the Tocher optimization method formed three clusters. Pearson correlation among genetic distance estimatesobtained from the DNA markers and the isoenzymatic markers showed the consistency of both the methodsin assessing genetic divergence among elephantgrass cultivars. No duplicates were found in the treatmentsassessed.Key words: