Genetic diversity of Portuguese autochthonous apple cultivars

Abstract

Apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) is one of the most widespread and commercially important horticultural crops in the world. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in autochthonous apple cultivars for organic farming as measure of environmental sustainable practice, once they are a privileged material that by natural selection acquired resistance to diseases and pests. Moreover, many of the regional cultivars have particular interesting organoleptic characteristics. This work constitutes the first molecular approach using ISSR markers on regional apple material from Northwest Portugal. A set of fourteen accessions representing autochthonous apple germplasm was studied using nine ISSR primers in order to estimate their genetic diversity and relationships. The obtained data enabled to assess the high genetic variability of the restricted number of Portuguese autochthonous apple material analysed, to uncover possible synonyms and intracultivar variability and the detection of possible identification errors.