Morphological characterization and genetic diversity of chickpea wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri, using SRAP and RAPD markers

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the third most important food legume crop of the developing countries after dry bean and pea and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri causing chickpea wilt is one of the major constraint of chickpea production. A total of thirty Sequence Related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP) and Fourteen Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers were used to determine the genetic variations among the four races (Foc1, Foc2, Foc3 and Foc4) of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri. Among all primers, Me1-Em5, Me1-Em13, Me3-Em11, Me3-Em7, Me4-Em14, Me4-Em18, Me5-Em5, K4, K7, P2 and P21 showed 100% polymorphism between the races. Out of thirty SRAP primer combinations, 25 produced a total of 437 scorable and reproducible amplicons with an average of 18.2 amplicon per primer and all the fourteen RAPD primers together produced a total of 238 scorable amplicons and showed 94.5% polymorphism.