RAPD analysis of genetic variation in natural populations of Betula alnoides from Guangxi, China

There is an urgent need for the developmentof early identification techniques inolive-trees due to the economic importanceof cultivar identification in periods ofexpansion like now. We have been able toidentify 22 olive-tree cultivars using only10 different, specific, repeatable markers.These markers were designed by the cloningof significant RAPD bands obtained in PCRperformed on bulked DNA to retain thegenetic variability of each cultivar.Clones were partially or totally sequencedand new primers derived from thesesequences were used to obtain SequenceCharacterised Amplified Region (SCAR)fragments. We have demonstrated that theuse of the 10 SCAR markers is enough toprovide a simple, cheap, and reliableprocedure to identify 22 geographicallyrelated olive-tree cultivars.