Genetic Analysis on Twenty-four Tea Germplasms from Fuding

Objective Genetic information on the local tea germplasms in Fuding were analyzed based on fluorescently labeled SSR markers for scientific identification and optimal utilization of the resource.

Method On 24 local tea germplasms in Fuding, as well as 34 major cultivated varieties in Fujian, 24 pairs of SSR fluorescent primers were used as the molecular markers to determine the diversity, differentiation, relationship, and transfer of the genes of the cultivars. A preliminary study on the leaf characteristics of 12 germplasms was also conducted.

Result On average, there were 6.2083 effective alleles and 3.0836 observed alleles in the specimens with the polymorphism information content (PIC) varying from 0.292 to 0.833 and a mean of 0.586 as well as 0.6185 observed hetemzygosity (HD) and 0.6422 expected hetemzygosiy (HE). The clustering by genetic distance placed the 24 Fuding germplasms in Groups 1 and 3 of three categories among all specimens. Group 1 was found closely related to 'Xiapu Chunbolv', Group 3 to 'Fuding Dabaicha', and Group 2 to oolong variety from the province. Genetically, Group 1 and Group 2 were highly similar. The Fuding germplasms had a Shannon diversity index of 1.1505 and half of them showed an average length to width ratio of 2.652 and leaf area of 18.378 cm².

Conclusion The 24 tea germplasms from Fuding were in two clustered categories and richly diversified genetically.