Entomological and genetic variation of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare) from Egypt

Abstract The Russian wheat aphid (Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko) is one of the most notorious pests and greatly limits the productivity of wheat and barley worldwide. Assessment of the genetic diversity of new barley germplasm (landraces) at both the genotypic and phenotypic levels may increase the efficiency of plant breeding and marker-assisted selection of desirable plant traits. The objective of this work was to use amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) to assess genetic diversity among 24 Egyptian barley landraces and to identify resistance to D. noxia in the landraces. Out of 273 polymorphic bands obtained using eight primer combinations, 35 bands were discriminative AFLP markers and could be used to distinguish the Egyptian barley landraces at the DNA level. An AFLP-based dendrogram, generated by UPGMA cluster analysis, indicated that there is a correlation between genetic similarities and location. The obtained dendrogram clustered the investigated landraces into three main groups. There wa...