Genetic Variation and Relationship Between Turkish Flint Maize Landraces by RAPD Markers

A comparative characterization of 17 flint maize landraces (Zea mays L.) was carried out using RAPD markers. Fourteen primers giving reliable and consistent polymorphic bands amplified 125 fragments (89%) with an average of 8.90 fragment per primer. Genetic variation in 17 maize landraces was characterized based on dissimilarity matrix by UPGMA dendogram which has no association into distinct grouping with respect to locations and many small clusters formed. The similarity was in range from 0.05 to 0.88. It is interesting that there was close relationship among yellow and yellow-orange endosperm accessions with the dissimilarity between 0.08 and 0.20. The group containing mostly white endosperm accessions displayed a range of genetic distance. It is considered that isolated accessions showed the highest genetic distance has a uncertain origin derived from a sample collected by landholder farmer. Turkish flint accessions had a high variability crossing from the different maize genetic resources. Only, isolated small landholder farmers kept the landraces without pollination from the different source of germplasm. These results will be able to help to maintain a germplasm collection with the genetic diversity among maize landraces for breeding program of maize in Turkey.