Morphological and molecular evaluation of Turkish rice (Oryza sativa L.) landraces

This study was carried out to evaluate Turkish rice landraces, in 2016 and 2017. Twenty-nine morphological traits were used for morphological evolution and 10 SSR markers were used for molecular evolution in 27 varieties. Based on morphological dendrogram, the landraces were divided in to 11 groups at 5 level differences. It was found that all 27 landraces had absent or very weak pubescence of panultimate leaf blade, broad decorated seed width and non-waxy kernel, however, they were highly polymorphic for the other 26 characters studied. In total 51 alleles were produced by screening with SSRs and among the markers; RM552 and RM287 were highly polymorphic for Turkish rice landraces with 11 and 8 alleles respectively. Average allele number was 5.1 and PIC ranged from 0.36 to 0.84. The UPGMA cluster dendrogram generated by using SSRs information and cluster grouped the 27 landraces in 2 major clusters. A significant level of polymorphism on molecular levels was observed. The study shows that some landraces with same local name were very distant from each other, while some local varieties with different names were same landraces.