Genetic Relationship of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.) Based on SSR Markers

Eleven cultivars of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), planted in Sichuan of China, were analyzed to assess the genetic relationship among them with SSR markers. Among 15 pairs of SSR primers, the result shows 10 of them could be amplified 3-7 alleles with an average of 5.2. Locus heterozygosity was 0.6584-0.8413 and the genetic diversity index was 0.7695. The genetic similarity coefficient among the 11 cultivars ranges from 0.5625-0.8636 with an average of 0.7339. Furthermore, according to the results of UPGMA cluster, the 11 sweet cherry cultivars can be divided into 3 groups. For the unknown parents of the sweet cherries, the Cv Summit is possibly the filial generation of Governor wood as female parent and Napoleon as male parent, the Black Tartarian might be related to Napoleon and the Mogami Nishiki might be related to Bing or Xiang Jiao. The direct cross and reciprocal cross will get different crossing progeny in sweet cherry. Thus, the SSR markers are the effective methods for the identification of sweet cherry parents especially, the female parent.