المجلة الدولية للعلوم والتقنية

In order to evaluate the genetic diversity among Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) accessions, a specified morphological and genetic markers were used to group the various accessions into distinct genotypes comparing between morphological and molecular methods were conducted. The groupings of accessions based on morphological description in cluster analysis were showed low variance value which was supported by genetic analysis. Molecular characterization was undertaken on eight accessions using two primers (Chl1 and Chl4) and the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method. Two primers were able to amplify 42 fragments of which 28 were polymorphic indicating that Roselle accessions are genetically close. Chl1 gave the highest genetic diversity and polymorphic information content (72%). The similarity index ranged from 0.62-0.91, which revealed a close range of genetic identification. A similarity coefficient of accession 8 was the lowest where this accession was classed into a separated group. In addition, high similarity index was also obtained among some of the accessions; UKM1 was highly similar to UKM2 and accession 3 had high similarity value with accession 6. The genetic distance was very close within the varieties. Thus, these RAPD markers have the potential for identification of varieties and characterization of genetic variation within the varieties