Identification of new durian cultivars in Si Sa Ket Province using microsatellite markers

Si Sa Ket Province has been recently recognized as a new durian planting area in Thailand. This study aimed to investigate genetic variation of local durian trees derived from open-pollinated seedlings. The genetic variation of 17 local durians and 12 commercial cultivars were analyzed using 26 microsatellite DNA markers that produced 151 alleles across all samples. The genetic relationship and dendrogram of these samples were analyzed by unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) using the NTSYS pc 2.1 program. The genetic compositions was analyzed using a STRUCTURE program. The results indicated durian samples had similar coefficients ranging from 0.51 to 0.82. All local durian cultivars were genetically different and different to the commercial cultivars. Together with leaf and fruit characteristic, five new cultivars were selected and registered.