The Possibility of Use of AFLP Molecular Markers an d Phenotypic Traits to Increase Forage Yield in Tall Fescue ( Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) Breeding

Abstract

Tall fescue is an out-crossing allohexaploid grass species extensively used for forage and turf worldwide. Cultivars of outbreeding forage gra sses such as tall fescue are usually synthetic populations derived from intercrossing se veral selected parents using the polycross method. In this study, the application of AFLP molecular markers to optimize genetic diversity in a polycross breeding program o f tall fescue was evaluated. For both phenotypic characters and AFLP molecular markers, t wo polycrosses of six parental plants with contrasting levels of genetic diversity were composed. A fifth polycross population was composed using six genotypes with th e highest general combining ability. The results of this study showed that marker assistant parental selection pro duced superior progenies, indicating that selection based on molecular marker diversity may be an appropriate means to improve first generation pr ogenies of tall fescue. This may be mainly useful in large breeding programs because th e identification of diversity based on phenotypic traits is time consuming and may be infl uenced by environmental effects. Keywords: AFLP, Phenotypic traits, Polycross, Tall fescue.