Molecular Identification of Saccharum spp. × Erianthus fulvus Hybrids Using Sequence‐Characterized Amplified Region Markers

Identification of hybrids derived from crosses between cultivated sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) and its wild relatives, including Erianthus fulvus Nees ex Hack., is important for the development of new sugarcane cultivars. The aim of the present study was to identify true hybrids in 73 F1 progeny obtained from five crosses with cultivated sugarcane as female parents and E. fulvus as male parents. Three random 10mers were used as primers in random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) reactions. A total of 10 E. fulvus–specific RAPD markers were cloned and sequenced, of which four were successfully applied as sequence‐characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers. Based on the four RAPD marker sequences, five SCAR primer pairs were designed for polymerase chain reaction amplifications. Of the 73 progeny examined, 58 produced E. fulvus–specific SCAR bands, thus representing true hybrids of cultivated sugarcane and E. fulvus These results demonstrate the first use of SCAR marker analysis as an effective tool for the identification of intergeneric sugarcane hybrids.