Genetic similarity of Brazilian hull-less and malting barley varieties evaluated by RAPD markers

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is widely used for brewing and animal feed. Recently, it has become desirable for human consumption due to its high nutritional significance, specially hull-less or naked barley. There are differences in nutritional and malting characteristics among barley varieties. RAPD procedure is able to separate barley varieties at various similarity levels. The aim of this work was the RAPID analysis of six Brazilian hull-less varieties and seven malting varieties. PCR reactions were performed with eleven random primers. A total of 34 RAPD fragments was obtained with five primers. A dendrogram was constructed based on the Jaccard similarity coefficient. Barley varieties displayed an average similarity coefficient of 0.53. Intravarietal rnonomorphic fragments allowed differentiation among varieties. The averages of intravarietal similarity coefficients ranged from 0.53 to 0.85. RAPID markers, detected in this work, were suitable for differentiation among Brazilian barley varieties.