Genetic diversity of late blight resistant and susceptible Indian potato cultivars revealed by RAPD markers

Twenty-four tetraploid Indian potato cultivars were characterized by using RAPD markers to assess diversity within and between late blight resistant and susceptible cultivars. Sixty-four random decamer primers generated802 fragments, ranging in size from 60–3200 bp, with 96.4% fragment polymorphism. Shannon's index of diversity was used to quantify the degree of variability present within and between the variety types. Most of the diversity was detected within variety types, with 88% of variation being within and 12% being between the resistant and susceptible cultivars. No clear groupings based on late blight resistance and susceptibility or kinship was reflected on the dendogram. The late blight resistant cultivars exhibited higher variability compared to susceptible cultivars and they were more dispersed on the PCO plot.