Proceedings of the XLVII Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Verona, Italy - 24/27 September, 2003

ISBN 88-900622-4-X

Poster Abstract - 2.36

GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF ITALIAN “FARRO” (T. DICOCCUM) POPULATIONS USING AFLP MARKERS

V. TALAMÉ, M. BALLARDINI, E. NOLI, F. D’ANTUONO, R. TUBEROSA

Department of Agroenvironmental Science and Technology, University of Bologna, Via Fanin 44, 40127 Bologna, Italy

Triticum dicoccum, genetic diversity, AFLP

Triticum dicoccum, also indicated with the term “farro” or “medium farro”, is one of the three species of hulled-wheat (Triticum monococcum L., Triticum dicoccum Schubler and Triticum spelta L.) which is still traditionally cultivated in limited areas of the central regions of Italy also in poor fertility soils and in presence of environmental constrains.

This species has recently been object of genetics and agronomical studies due to the increasing interest towards “low input” cultivars in Italy, and in consideration that the T. dicoccum cultivation is disappearing because progressively replaced by modern varieties of bread and durum wheat.

In this study, ten Italian populations of farro, collected from their traditional cultivation areas, were analysed by amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) markers in order to better characterize their level of genetic variability. Eight combinations of AFLP primers were used for selective amplification yielding 146 polymorphic AFLPs. On average, each AFLP assay revealed a percentage of 19.1% polymorphic bands; the index of polymorphic content (PIC) and the marker index (MI) indicated for each AFLP assay a good discrimination among genotypes.

Based on presence/absence of fragments, the genetic similarity (Dice coefficient) values among genotypes revealed an average value of 0.64 with higher values within winter habitus populations (GS = 0.79) and spring habitus ones (GS = 0.83). Cluster and principal component analysis (PcA) clearly showed a good grouping of the genotypes in each single population. The correlation values between similarity estimates computed for each AFLP assay and for assays allowed for the identification of a few representative AFLP assays that may be useful for further characterization of T. dicoccum populations.