The use of RAPD markers for the study of olive germplasm from Apulia and Basilicata

This paper presents the preliminary results of an experiment whose aim is to evaluate the extent to which RAPD analysis was able to obtain the characterisation and identification of 24 traditional varieties of olive from Puglia and Basilicata Regions (Italy). The samples of leaves were collected from the germplasm collection of the Istituto Sperimentale per l'Olivicoltura in Rende (CS), Italy, or from olive cutting just before their propagation. 33 random decamer primers were employed for PCR amplifications; 174 reproducible amplification fragments were used as polymorphic markers. The number of markers per primer ranged from 1 to 12, and the dimensions from 320 (AH 17; AH 18) to 2600 (AI 12) base pairs. Data generated by RAPD analysis were analized using the Dice similarity index. The similarity ranged from 0.29 for 'Maiatica di Ferrandina' and 'Cazzinicchio', and 0.97 for 'Bella di Cerignola' and 'Bella di Spagna'. Noteworthy were also the s.v. for 'Ogliarola barese' and 'Ogliarola del Bradano' or 'Cima di Mola' and 'Ogliarola leccese', that reach 0.96, respectively. These high values of similarity indicated two distinct cases of closely related cultivars, although the synonymy could not be excluded. The high level of polymorphism observed amongst the different genotypes allowed their identification when using a few primers.