Genetic Diversity of Walnut Revealed by AFLP and RAPD Markers

AFLP and RAPD methods were used to investigate the genetic diversity of walnuts in western Sichuan plateau and Qinba mountainous regions. 35 samples were collected from 8 different regions, and 32 RAPD primers and 28 AFLP primer combinations were identified with polymorphism bands among the entire. 324 and 2155 fragments were respectively produced by RAPD and AFLP makers, and 86.1 % of RAPD bands and 57.2% of AFLP bands showed polymorphic with the size of 180~2000 bp and 50~1800 bp, respectively. The average amplified were 10.1 fragments per primer by RAPD and 76.9 fragments per pair primer by AFLP. The more polymorphic for genetic resource in Western Sichuan Plateau was observed by both RAPD and AFLP. The high number of alleles and the high expected genetic diversity detected with RAPD and AFLP markers indicate that western China has an important genetic diversity pool and abundant genetic variance of walnuts.