Screening by SSR markers revealed synonyms among 38 Iranian local apricot cultivars propagated by nurseries

In Iran, many apricot local cultivars have been relocated between provinces and subsequently, in some cases, the names of these have been changed over the years. Hence, to determine the genetically different cultivars and detection of synonyms, screening of apricot germplasm in Iran seems necessary. In this study, 38 local cultivars of apricots (with 5 biological replications), propagated by 14 nurseries in 6 provinces were collected and studied by 13 SSR primer pairs. To check the genetic identity of saplings with the same name, some cultivars including ‘Jahangiri’, ‘Askar Abadi’, ‘Shamlou’, ‘Saltanati’, ‘Shahroudi’, ‘Shams’, ‘Tabarze’, and ‘Rajabali’ were collected from two different nurseries. Eight SSR markers that showed more diversity were selected and scored. Eight loci produced 124 alleles with an average of 15.5 alleles per locus. Nei’s gene diversity and Shannon’s information index were 0.32 and 0.48, respectively. The most genetic distance (0.74) was seen between ‘Askar Abadi’ and ‘Zodras’, ‘Mahali Goushti Zodras’, and ‘Nasiri’. Clustering of samples by paired group method indicated that some samples were off-types. For identification of synonyms, off-type data were disregarded. Cluster analysis illustrated that some of the samples with different names had the same genetic backgrounds. Principal coordinate analysis demonstrated that the 38 collected groups of apricots are genetically 26 distinct genotypes. Surprisingly, the results showed that ‘Nasiri’, ‘Tabraze’, and ‘Shahroudi’ which were sampled twice from distinct nurseries and provinces, despite identical names, had different genetic backgrounds suggesting that the identities of the local cultivars were not protected satisfactorily by the nurseries. Results of the present study showed that there are serious deficiencies in apricot germplasm and nursery management in the country.