Exploration of various markers in segregation of male and female in palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer L.)

Borassus flabellifer L. popularly called karpaga viruksham i.e,. “Multipurpose tree” in Tamil culture is an economically significant plant with its vast range of application in food and medicine. Especially, the quality of food produces from female palmyra attracts high economical value which encourages the farmers to grow trees with more female to male sex ratio. But Palmyra has a long juvenile period of 12-15 years and is difficult to segregate them before inflorescence. In the recent past, very few attempts had been made in the arena of molecular markers to distinguish the sex of palmyra and most of the work states that markers couldn’t be relied strongly or it fails to segregate them. Yet OPA-06 marker was found to be reliable sex discriminating marker. Thus this study focus on examining the reliability of four different markers including OPA-06, M1 & M2, F1 & F2, F3 & F4 in sex discrimination of palmyra from three different locations (Coimbatore, Ramnad, Viluppuram) of Tamil Nadu. Thus the outcome of the evaluation of the above mentioned molecular markers used as tool for the identification of sex in palmyra palm is presented.