Mulberries have importance in the sericulture industry as food for Bombyx mori, silkworm reared for its silk. Korean Morus alba have many cultivars and, for the protection of these cultivars and for utilization in plant-breeding programs, genetic information and the diversity among cultivars are essential. This study with 14 mulberry genotypes was undertaken using RAPD and ISSR fingerprinting to discover the genetic divergences between cultivars. Polymorphism rate among the cultivars produced by RAPD primer was found to be 64.48% and 66.29% relative to ISSR primer. The genetic relationships among the cultivars were identified using a dendrogram constructed with the UPGMA clustering method. Nei's method was used to calculate the genetic dissimilarity coefficients between each pair of genotypes, and the highest dissimilarity coefficient of 0.246 was exhibited between Suwon and Hwanggum cultivars. To determine the efficiency of each primer, a polymorphic index was calculated, and the robustness of the dendrogram was checked using cophenetic correlation coefficient. The results of this study can be utilized for the improvement of mulberry varieties in plant-breeding programs.

• Duraisamy Kalpana
• Hyo-Jung Cha
• Tae-Ki Choi
• Yang-Soo Lee