A total of 11
durum wheat varieties were grown in the green house to study the
morphological differences: Six landraces, three commercial cultivars,
and two introduced cultivars from ICARDA were further analyzed to detect
variations among durum wheat varieties at DNA level using RAPD
technique. The following characters were studied: Plant height, Flag
leaf length, and Tillering capacity. Statistical analysis using One Way
Anova test showed significant variability among varieties for Tillering
number, which ranged between l to 3 tiller/plant. However there was
non- significant variability among varieties in plant height and flag
leaf length.
DNA genetic variation was studied using 11 wheat varieties collected
from 7 locations in Palestine. A genetic similarity matrix based on the
dice coefficients was constructed using RAPD data to assess the genetic
relatedness. The mean similarity indices presented by the 11 varieties
ranged from 0.l to 0.81 for all varieties with an average of 0.40. The
wide range of similarity indices indicated that a wide range DNA
polymorphism occur among the 11 varieties. The results showed also that
clustering in the same cluster for the varieties which could have
common genomes, but no clustering related to collection site. Of the 11
varieties used, there were 159 RAPD marker produced by five primers.
This analysis has proven that RAPD-PCR is a useful tool to determine
genetic diversity among durum wheat varieties and can provide valuable
information for the management and identification of genetic resources.