doiSerbia

Morphologic and cytoplasmic assessments of bulb onion (Allium cepa L.) landraces

Cebeci Esra (Bati Akdeniz Agricultural Research Institute, Antalya, Turkey), esrac3@hotmail.com
Padem Huseyin (Isparta University of Applied Sciences, Department of Horticulture, Isparta, Turkey)
Gokce Ali Fuat (Omer Halisdemir University, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Nigde, Turkey)

Today climate change threatens to reduce crop yield and harming the food security. Local landraces have adaptation skills to shifting climatic conditions. Using of this local source in plant breeding programs becoming an alternative strategy. In this study, 97 landraces were collected to initiate the bulb onion breeding program eligible for the current trends. Collected materials were morphologically characterized using 21 descriptors, derived from UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants). Clustering which was conducted by the NTSYS (Numerical Taxonomy and Multivariate Analysis System) program using UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method of Arithmetic Averages) method, showed that the genetic similarity rate of the landraces was calculated between 0.06-0.96. Hybrid onion breeding program depends on the cytoplasmic-genic male sterility (CMS) system. Thus, the PCR-markers were applied to identify the cytoplasm types of the landraces. Among landraces N-cytoplasm was found in 78 accessions and S-cytoplasm was found in 19 accessions. At the end of the study, a qualified gene pool has been established consisted of characterized onion genotypes which will might be used in further breeding studies.

Keywords: characterization, CMS, diversity, NTSYS, onion breeding