Diversity Analysis in Foeniculum vulgare (fennel) through Morphological and Molecular Markers Grover Staffi1,*, Malik C.P.2 1Research Fellow, School of Basic Sciences, Jaipur National University, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India 2Advisor, School of Basic Sciences, Jaipur National University, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India *Corresponding author email id: groverstaffi@gmail.com
Abstract Foeniculum vulgare has been considered as an important medicinal plant. Morphological and molecular characterization of this aromatic herb will enhance our understanding in improving its optimal yields through breeding. Fennel seeds of 7 genotypes lines, namely, FNL-41, 46, RF 101, 125,143,178 and 205, grown in Rajasthan were used for morphological and molecular analysis. The agro-morphological traits studied were; plant height, no. of branches, foliage density, days to flowering, umbel/plant, umbellate/umbel, seeds/umbel, fruit length, fruit width, test weight and seed yield. A positive correlation was seen in plant height and number of umbellet/umbel and also in between number of branches and number of umbels/plant. The varieties were grouped by cluster analysis using the unweighted pair group method analysis (UPGMA) based on the similarity matrix of Euclidean distances of the morphological data. DNA extracted was subjected to RAPD and ISSR analysis. RAPD markers were found more efficient than the ISSR assay with regards to polymorphism detection, as they detected 50% polymorphism as compared with 39.1% for ISSR markers. The varieties exhibited high degree of polymorphism at both morphological and molecular levels. To trace the relationship among different varieties, a dendrogram was derived separately from morphological, RAPD, ISSR data and combined data of RAPD and ISSR analysis. The clustering based on morphological characters did not match that of groupings derived through molecular analysis (RAPD + ISSR). The DNA markers and morphological traits mismatch is attributed to clustering based on molecular markers and quantitative traits because most of the quantitative traits are controlled by polygenes and these traits are highly influenced by environment. Top Keywords Fennel varieties, Morphological traits, RAPD and ISSR analyses. Top |