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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Pullman, Washington » Plant Germplasm Introduction and Testing Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #256433
Title: Determining redundancy of short-day, onion (Allium cepa L. var. cepa) accessions in a germplasm collection

Author
item Kisha, Theodore
item CRAMER, CHRISTOPHER - New Mexico State University

Submitted to: Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/8/2010
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: This presentation compares microsatellite and targeted region amplified polymorphism molecular markers for their ability to distinguish redundant onion (Allium cepa L. var. cepa) germplasm. Both marker types distinguished differences and found similarities, but the results didn’t always agree. TRAP markers were more efficient, uncovering about 10 polymorphic loci per primer pair.

Technical Abstract: The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System is one of the world’s largest national genebank networks focusing on preserving the genetic diversity of plants by acquiring, preserving, evaluating, documenting and distributing crop-related germplasm to researchers worldwide. Maintaining viable germplasm collections is essential to world food security, but comes at a cost. Redundancy within the collection can incur needless expense and occurs as a result of donations of similar material under different names from different donors. Alternatively, similarly named accessions from different donors can actually be genetically distinct. We evaluated 38 short-day onion accessions using SSR and TRAP molecular markers to compare newly acquired germplasm with current accessions in the collection to determine differences and redundancies. Both marker types distinguished differences and found similarities, but the results didn’t always agree. TRAP markers were more efficient, uncovering about 10 polymorphic loci per primer pair.