RAPD data do not support a second centre of barley domestication in Morocco

A RAPD analysis was conducted to clearify the mode of evolution of barley in the western Mediterranean basin. Twenty-nine barley accessions (Hordeum vulgare) and 13 populations of the wild progenitor (H. v. subsp. spontaneum) together with two outgroup species were analysed with seven RAPD primers, resulting in 101 polymorphic amplified fragments. Phenetic and cladistic analyses of the RAPD data resulted in trees indicating a monophyletic origin of cultivated barley, thus making a secondary domestication in Morocco unlikely. In Morocco spontaneous back mutation to wild type and crossing between wild barley (introduced from the E Mediterranean) and cultivated lines occurred, which gave rise to the local weedy forms of barley.