Assam of the northeastern region of India is unique in terms of its rich biodiversity and multiple ethnicity of its people. The impact of the resultant socio-religio-cultural diversity is also reflected in the diverse traditional ways of silkworm farming. We report the genetic diversity of Persea bombycina “ Som ” from different locations of Goalpara district of Assam, India, where random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker was used in this study. RAPD analyses of ten genotypes of “ Som ” from Goalpara district of Assam, India with B19 RAPD primer generated 86 bands, showing an average of 8.6 bands per sample and 30.2% (26 bands) of these were polymorphic. The number of bands per accession ranged from 5 to 10 with a mean of 8.6 and the size range of the amplified bands was 250 - 6000 bp. In a UPGMA phenetic dendrogram based on Jaccard’s coefficient, the P. bombycina accessions showed a high level of genetic variation, as indicated by genetic similarity and revealed 10 “ Som ” genotypes in to three major clusters. This study may be useful in identifying diverse genetic stocks of P. bombycina , which may then be conserved on a priority basis. The RAPD primer used in this study was able to distinguish all the 10 genotypes of “ Som ” plants, which can be used to assess genetic diversity.
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