Orobanche cumana is a parasitic plant that can lead to advanced losses in yield of agricultural lands cultivating sunflower, depending on the sunflower varieties and the level of contamination. In our study, genetic diversity of six O. cumana populations from the Thrace region of Turkey was determined with the help of eight SSR (microsatellite) loci. All SSR loci were polymorphic. A total of 23 alleles were determined for the analyzed 120 samples. Allele number of each SSR locus ranged from two to six. Mean number of alleles (Na = ), effective allele number (Ne = ), Shannon’s information index (I = ), and heterozygosity levels (Ho = and He = ) were calculated. A high proportion of the genetic variation (66%) was due to within-population variation and 34% of the diversity was due to among-population variations. |
