MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF THE DNA POLYMORPHISM OF WILD BARLEY (HORDEUM-SPONTANEUM) GERMPLASM USING THE POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION

Hordeum spontaneum is the progenitor of cultivated barley (H. vulgare) and is an important source of genetic variation for barley breeding programs. The genetic diversity of H. spontaneum in the Australian germplasm collection was investigated using the polymerase chain reaction with random and semi-random primers. This approach was found to be robust in respect of reaction conditions. Genetic dissimilarity values between genotypes were used to produce a phenogram of the relationships among the accessions using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean. The largest divergence was observed among Israeli accessions, whereas the Turkish and Iranian samples clustered as distinct subsets, each apparently related to portion of the Israeli material. The results indicate that the genetic diversity of the wild barleys is broadly correlated with geographic distribution