RAPD Markers on Genetic Diversity in Three Populations of Pisifera Type of Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis)

Palm oil (E. guineensis) is one of the major commodity and contributing largely to non-petroleum oil of Indonesian foreign exchange. E. guineensis has three fruit types, dura (female), pisifera (male), and tenera -a hybrid between dura and pisifera. Pisifera plays an important function in the production of seed oil palm. The purpose of this research is to analyze genetic diversity of pisifera type of E. guineensis from three populations, Yangambi, Lame and Lame further cross in Bangun Bandar, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Eighteen samples for each population were analyzed using six RAPD markers. Results showed that RAPD markers were low polymorphic with 1.49, 1.39, and 1.00 average number alleles detected for Yagambi, Lame, and Lame further cross, respectively. The level of genetic diversity detected for each population was 0.28, 0.22, and 0.21 for Yagambi, Lame, and Lame further cross, respectively, indicating that the populations had little genetic variation. The highest of polymorphic information content (PIC) was found on the P11 primer of Yangambi (0.49) and P10 primer for lame further cross (0.49). By contrast, the lowest PIC belongs to P21 for Lame population (0.01). This data is likely to contributing oil palm breeding.