Relationship of European persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) cultivars to Asian cultivars, characterized using AFLPs

Sixty one persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) selections, including 17 Italian, 11 Spanish, 13 Japanese, six Korean, five Chinese, one Israeli, and eight of unknown origin, were evaluated for genetic differences by AFLP analysis. Relationships among cultivars were evaluated by UPGMA clustering, Neighbor Joining, and MultiDimensional Scaling. While similarities among groups were generally less than 0.60, both UPGMA and Neighbor Joining separated European and Asian cultivars. Spanish and Italian cultivars were not separated by any of the analyses, suggesting that they share a common gene pool, while Japanese, Chinese and Korean cultivars formed distinct clusters. Diversity within groups was greater than diversity between groups. Most cultivars were quite polymorphic (only 0.60-0.80 similarity between cultivars). In addition, the presence of several Japanese cultivars in the European group and a group of European cultivars nested between Chinese and Korean groups suggest that similar, but different progenitors were used in the development of the present European cultivars. 'Kaki Tipo' selections from different sources were clearly different by AFLP analysis, indicating that they are separate cultivars.