Optimized conditions for RAPD analysis in Pinus radiata

Abstract

Pinus radiata is the most important softwood plantation species in Australia and New Zealand. The importance of this species in forestry has led to an increasing demand to improve the efficiency of selection time of the production population, which currently takes 13 yr by traditional methods. With the application of molecular biology techniques such as random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) the selection period can be reduced to 6 yr. In this study, the conditions for RAPD were optimized and the feasibility of this marker system was investigated with different families of Pinus radiata from Tasmania and South Australia. Best concentrations of Taq-polymerase (1 U), magnesium chloride (2 mM)..