Comparison of morphological characteristics and RAPD for estimating genetic diversity in Abelmoschus spp.

Genetic diversity of 39 Abelmoschus spp accessions was investigated at the DNA level with the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) procedure and at the phenotypic level with stable and highly heritable morphological characters. Thirty-one random decamer primers were used to amplify DNA by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and 103 RAPD fragments were generated. Thirteen quantitative and 14 qualitative characteristics were measured on the genotypes in field experiments using randomized complete blocks design with four replications. Dendrograms were generated for genetic distance based on molecular data (RAPD) and average distance from the morphological data. Classification of all genotypes based on the two methods gave similar results. It was observed a correlation of 0.62 between molecular and morphological data. On the other hand, the comparison between molecular distance and descriptors generated only by quantitative data showed that the correlation increased to 0.88, demonstrating that the qualitative descriptors had little influence on the genotypic discrimination. The most significant correlation (0.91) was verified between morphological descriptors distance and distance generated by quantitative data. These results showed that the quantitative descriptors and the molecular approach have high potential in the okra germplasm morphongronomic characterization. This experiment also demonstrated that the investigated genotypes grouping pattern was similar to multivariate analysis.