Lolium perenne, as one of the most important forage grasses of temperate regions, combines a number of very useful characteristics, e.g., good seedling establishment, with a low resistance to drought and limited winter hardiness. Trait selection and introgression can be greatly enhanced by the use of molecular markers in a genetic linkage map. The aim of this project was the generation of a genomic microsatellite library which when combined with microsatellites developed from a Genethresher database would give good genome coverage coupled to high levels of marker polymorphism
