Genetic diversity assessment of male and female pistachio genotypes based on ISSR markers

Genetic study of pistachio, especially male genotypes due to the effects of pollen on nut quality and quantity and next generation characterizations, help to improve its management and breeding programs. We studied the genetic diversity among 20 male and 36 female pistachio genotypes using ISSR marker. In total 178 DNA frgments were proliferated using 12 primers that 169 fragments were polymorphism. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) for the used primers were variable from 16 to up to 35%. Pistachio genotypes classified as five main categories by using cluster analysis. The most genetic similarity was between the ‘Poostkhormayee’and ‘Momtaz’ cultivars with 78% similarity and the lowest genetic similarity was between ‘Ravar3’ cultivar with ‘Ghazvini’cultivar and K40 genotype with 25% similarity. K38 male genotype had the lowest genetic similarity with female cultivars. Thus, it can be introduced as appropriate pollinizer for other studied cultivars. The results of analysis of molecular variance analysis showed that variability between male and female populations (8%) was lower than the variation within the populations (92%). Based on present results, ISSR marker was as a powerful tool to study the genetic variation among male and female pistachio genotypes.