QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS AND GENOMIC ANALYSIS OF WHEAT GENOTYPES IN IRAQ

The breeding material comprising 17 Iraqi wheat cultivars belongs to three different types, i.e., a) salinity-tolerant cultivars (Dajla, Furat, 1H, 2H, 2N, 3H, 3N, and 7H), b) drought-tolerant cultivars (Sham-6 and Orok), and c) local cultivars (Iraq, Iba99, Iba95, Abu Ghraib-3, Adnanin, Tamoze, and Alrashid) underwent qualitative characteristics and genomic analysis studies in 2021-2022, at the Biotechnology Research Center, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq. Measuring the percentage of protein, wet and dry gluten, and molecular fingerprinting used the randomly amplified polymorphic of DNA (RAPD) technique with six primers, with traits estimation using a dendrogram. The highest percentage of protein (24.5%), wet (52.7%), and dry gluten (27.3%) emerged from the wheat genotype Dajla. However, the recorded lowest percentages of wet (32.52%) and dry gluten (7.62%) appeared in wheat genotype Iba99. The cultivars Aadnania, Abu Ghraib-3, and Tamoze gave the lowest protein content of 9.45, 10.34, and 10.54, respectively. The cluster analysis divided 17 wheat genotypes into two large cluster groups. Amplification of all 365 loci used six primers. Fragments‟ size ranged from 100 bp to 2000 kb. The highest number of bands (73) was amplified with primer Pr-5, while the lowest number (48) was with primer Pr-1.