Abstract:
Safflower is a drought tolerant annual oil crop and this gives it an advantage over the other crops in the
drier parts of Kenya. It is valued worldwide as a source of high quality vegetable oil. In the past,
characterization of safflower using molecular markers has been limited. The objective of this study was
to evaluate the degree of polymorphism in 36 safflower accessions using RAPDs. Sixty-one ampl-
ification products were scored using 14 random 10 mer primers and binary matrices subjected to
statistical analyses using NTSYS. A resemblance matrix was developed using SMC, which was used
with the UPGMA to compute cluster analysis and PCA. Eight groups were formed at a similarity coe-
fficient of 0.79. Cluster two had 14 accessions originating from India, USA, Australia and Bangladesh
while cluster three had 9 accessions from India, USA and Mexico. Proportionally accessions from India
were highest in cluster one and two. The differences between pairs of accessions were basically related
to the number of RAPD fragments shared. Four Indian accessions PI 214150, PI 199910, W6 16821 and
PI 248359 clustered together. However, Girna also from India formed an independent cluster. SMC
among accessions ranged from 0.37 (PI 248359 and PI 262419) to 0.98 (PI 560177 and T65). The last two
accessions may be genetically related since they constituted the nearest to a complete match for all
markers. Accessions from different countries tended to group together though random scattering often
occurred. Using PCA the first three components explained 44% of the total variation. The results
indicate genetic polymorphism between the safflower accessions under study.
