• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.48-69
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• 2001

A lot of clones of the genus Dioscorea have been introduced from some tropical and subtropical regions since 1997. In 33 clones of water yams (Dioscorea alata L.), some morphological characteristics were investigated at the field. Variation ranges of the total weight and tuber number per stump were within the ranges from 90 to 2,147 g with an average of 610 g ; and 1.3-4.7 with an average of 2.8, respectively. The color tones observed on the tuber-flesh were sorted into 3 color-categories, i.e., white, pale brown and pale purple, and those on leaves were sorted into 3 color-categories, i.e., green, heavy green and purplish green. Intraspecific genetic relationship of 19 variation types of the Yam classified by their external morphological characteristics such as leaf and tuber shape was assessed by DNA using random and specific primers. Twenty two out of 113 primers (100 random[10-mer] primers, two 15 mer [M13 core sequence, and (GGAT)4 sequence]) had been used in PCR-amplification. Only 12 primers, however, were successful in DNA amplification in all of the analyzed plants, resulting in 93 randomly and specifically amplified DNA fragments. The analyzed taxa showed very high polymorphisms(69 bands, 71.0%), allowing individual taxon to be identified based on DNA fingerprinting. Monomorphic bands among total amplified DNA bands of each primer was low under the 50%. Similarity indices between accessions were computed from PCR(polymerase chain reaction) data, and genetic relationships among intraspecific variations were closely related at the levels ranging from 0.66 to 0.90.