Diversity of ICCRI Cacao Germplasm Collections Based on Morphological and Molecular analysis

Abstract

Availability of morphological and molecular descriptions of germplasm collections is necessary for developing cacao breeding program and proposing plant variety protection application. Therefore, genetic diversity studies through morphological and molecular characterization for cacao collections in Indonesia need to be conducted. The general objectives of these experiments were to analyze genetic diversity of cacao collection of Indonesian Coffee and Cacao Research Institute using morphological and molecular markers. The specific objectives were: (1) to characterize morphologically the ICCRI cacao collection, (2) to screen specific primer (SSR marker) that can be used to analyze cacao genome, (3) to characterize the ICCRI cacao collections using SSR markers, and (4) to evaluate diversity of ICCRI cacao collections using morphological and SSR markers. Morphological characterization have been conducted for 24 cacao clone of ICCRI collection. Morphological data were analyzed using NTSys to evaluate diversity of cacao collections. SSR markers were generated using 27 specific primers. Using those primers and total nucleic acid of cacao genome as template, a number of SSR markers have been identified. SSR markers were generated by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The generated SSR marker data were analyzed using NTSys and other genetic analysis software to evaluate genetic diversity of cacao collections. The analysis of molecular data to determine genetic diversity of ICCRI cacao germplasm collections based on SSR markers was still conducted. Detail results of the morphological diversity and genetic diversity of cacao will be presented.