Promising RAPD marker linked to high yield traits in cashew accessions.

Cashew is an important export commodity in Indonesia. To support superior cashew plant material availability through breeding, it is necessary to characterize the existing germplasm, either morphological characteristics, yield components, or molecular characteristics. This study aimed to obtain molecular markers possibly linked to high-yielding cashew nuts using random primers. Twenty-six random primers were applied to amplify the DNA of 39 cashew accessions, either individually or in bulk. Two pools of DNA showing high and low-yield characters (mapping population) were performed based on the Bulk Segregant Analysis (BSA) methods. The results showed that six (OPA-02, OPC-02, OPC05, OPN-05, OPAX-17, OPPA-09, OPO-11) out of 26 random primers applied were capable of amplifying cashew DNA and revealed the polymorphic banding patterns. Amongst those, it showed that whether in bulk-DNA or individual accessions, the banding patterns linked to high yield traits found in some bands repeatedly, e.g., 800, 900, 1,000, and 1,200 bp amplified by OPA-02, OPX-17and OPA-11 primers. While other base pairs revealed by other random primers remained differed accordingly, indicating that different genes were linked to high yield in different cashew accessions. It might be due to the genetic material used in this study being varied according to its origin. Therefore, further investigation related to specific quantitative traits in cashew remained to be explored more to gain the aim of the study regarding particular markers linked to high-yielding cashew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]