Confirmation of Medjool' Date as a Landrace Variety through Genetic Analysis of Medjool' Accessions in Morocco (original) (raw)
2006, Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
We studied 66 `Medjool' date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) accessions from Morocco, six varieties of dates from Egypt, and four `Medjool' accessions and one `Deglet Noor' accession from California to investigate the hypothesis that `Medjool' is a landrace variety in Morocco. We used four sets of fluorescent-labeled amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to examine these accessions. A total of 402 bands were generated, of which 217 were polymorphic (54.0%). The 66 `Medjool' accessions from Morocco shared a minimum of 79% genetic similarity. These results support the hypothesis that `Medjool' is a landrace variety in Morocco and it is not genetically uniform. `Medjool' is the first confirmed landrace variety of date palm in the world. This finding raises the possibility that other date palms may be landrace varieties in different growing areas. Confirmation of a landrace variety in date palm has significant implication for future date palm ge...
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