Morphological and genetic diversity of thirty nine safflower germplasm were collected and evaluated by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method. Stem length and seeding to flowering days of the safflower germplasm showed 26~~117cm~;and~;76~~179 days of variation respectively. USA originated germplasm showed higher oil content as 39~% , but that of Japanese showed lower as 26~% . PCA made three different cluster groups according to some agronomic characteristics of safflower. Korea originated germplasm showed similar cluster group with that of collected from USA in the PCA of stem length. But in the seeding to flowering days, it showed similar cluster pattern with that of collected from Japan rather than USA. In the experiment of RAPD analysis, total five primers showed polymorphism at the several chromosomal loci. Korea, China Japan and South Central Asia originated germplasm were differently classified with USA and South West Asia originated germplasm with lower similarity coefficient value (0.47). Most of Korea originated germplasm were grouped with South Central Asia originated germplasm with higher similarity coefficient value (0.74) conferring similar genetic background between both of them. China and Japan originated germplasm were dendrogramed with Korea originated germplasm at the 0.65 and 0.50 similarity coefficient values respectively. Some common results were expected from both of PCA and RAPD analysis, but lower genetic heritability caused by relative higher portion of environmental variance and environment by genotype interaction at the expression of those of agronomic characteristics made constraint to find any reliable results.

• Kang-Bo Shim
• Seok-Bok Bae
• Si-Kyu Lim
• Duck-Yong Suh