Estimating Genetic Relationships through Morphological and Molecular Markers in Oat (Avena sativaL.)

Equivalence was appraised between phenotypic and molecular markers (RAPD) to analyze the genetic diversity of seven high yielding genotypes representing different geographical zones of world. A low range of genetic similarity (7.56–3.33) was observed on the basis of 15 morphological characters whereas; it was moderate (0.74–0.36) on the basis of 10 RAPD markers. Genotypes in RAPD based dendrogram were clustered into their respective phylogenetic groups while, a random grouping was observed in dendrogram based on the morphological markers. A negative correlation (r = -0.01368) was found among morphological and molecular marker systems, but the latter was found effective in distinguishing the genotypes using specific band positions for them. The genotypic classification agreed closely with the grouping observed in RAPD based 3D analysis.